


Monster That I Despise

by Pinetreedeath



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, His siblings are there for him, Lots of Angst, Lots of gore right away so heads up, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Unhinged, Number Five | The Boy is Feral, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26745208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinetreedeath/pseuds/Pinetreedeath
Summary: After surviving two weeks of hell with his family, Five's nightmare isn't over yet. He forgot a few crucial details that won't let him live a life of ease. After all, two apocalypses and protecting your loving family can't make you forget what you truly are, right?
Comments: 73
Kudos: 255





	1. And so it begins

Five had been through hell and back. Quite literally. He survived an apocalypse alone for 45 years, saw his siblings die, murdered so many lives, saw his siblings perish, was stuck in his thirteen year old body, went through two weeks of hell to save his family and the world, and oh, did he forget to mention that he watched his siblings die? 

It didn’t matter anymore. He had resurrected them and safely brought them back to the future. They managed to get there without a hitch. The timeline was safe and everything was peaceful. Or so Five thought…..

“Dammit Five, no more time traveling.” Diego growled as the siblings groaned in pain from being flung just short of 56 years into the future.

Time traveling was a pain in the ass, especially if you weren’t used to it. They all looked a bit pale and drowsy, except for Five who was used to it. 

Five glared at Diego, his jaw was set tight and his eyes squinting into a glare. He had done so much to protect them and to keep them safe, and _this_ was the thanks he got?

Five opened his mouth to tear his brother a new one when Vanya decided to speak up. “He just saved our lives Diego.” She scoffed. The siblings slowly shuffled into the living room area, glancing around to make sure they were really home.

“Yeah, not to mention this is-” Luther looked upward thoughtfully as he counted on his fingers, “his second time saving us.” He held out two fingers.

_Oh no it wasn’t. However what’s done is done so there was no sense in telling them about the barn._

Diego just rolled his eyes. “Oh you’re going to act like you liked it here, _Number One_? Your life was shit in the previous 2019. You were better off in the sixties. You had a job and you were a damn good fighter." He whirled around and pointed an accusatory finger at Vanya. "And you! Don’t act like you won’t miss Sissy and Harlan. Harlan really needed you, and he probably still does. They’re probably both under a lot of stress now that they have to run away.”

Vanya looked down at her feet. 

_He was right._

“I’m starting to believe we were all better off in the sixties. Allison had a loving husband and became a respected activist, Luther didn’t have to hide his body, Klaus was being his pervy self but amplified and managed to travel the world, and I had a partner in crime, a _girlfriend_. It all went to shit when you showed up, Five.” Diego paced around the room and slowly turned to face Five.

Five couldn’t believe this was happening. “I saved your _lives_.” Five spat out through gritted teeth. “Do you not remember that there was another apocalypse?” Five tilted his head and glared daggers at Diego. 

“How about the Commission almost killing all of us on that ranch?” Five now had his finger pointing behind him to gesture to the past where they had just came from.

“I’m sure we’d all rather die living our best lives than to be thrown back to our shit lives with a little controlling asshole. If anything you ruined our lives, Five.” Diego was now standing face to face with Five, challenging his smallest brother to fight back.

“Diego, that’s enough. He saved us. He was trying his best to stop the apocalypse.” Luther piped up as he took a step forward to his raging brothers.

“Ray might have been the new light of my life, but I’m glad to be alive.” Allison stepped forward and put a hand on Five’s shoulder. “Diego is just sad because his ‘girlfriend,’” Allison threw up quotations with her fingers, “escaped from him.” 

It was Klaus’s turn to give his two cents. “Yeah the sixties were okay for me, but I’m proud of Mr. Baby for saving all of us. My cult was shit and Dave still volunteered for the war, so…. y’know.” Klaus gave a sad chuckle and twirled his hands in the air as a ‘what can you do?’ gesture.

He strolled over to Diego and slung an arm around his shoulders. Diego quickly shrugged Klaus’s arm off of him.

“Don’t take his side. You got to meet Dave again. He was alive. I could have _saved_ the president. This little shit ruined that. He ruined history.” He gave Five a hard shove to his chest, which caused Five to stumble backwards into Allison.

“Diego! That’s enough.” Vanya joined in on the sibling circle that had begun to form around Five and Diego. Five could feel the rage inside of him beginning to boil. 

_If that’s what Diego wanted to believe, then fine. Five only needed them alive, to be safe. He didn’t need them to love him back-_

Five felt tears forming in his eyes. He quickly turned away from his siblings and began to head to the lobby of the academy. 

A muffled shout was heard as Five stepped away. “Oh great, now look what you did!” 

He didn’t want to hear their arguing. He was a grown man who hadn’t cried in years. He just wanted them safe, why couldn’t they get that? Everyone seemingly argued against Diego, but did they actually believe Five saved them? He knew Luther already was questioning him if he actually knew the second apocalypse was coming. They all did get to start new lives. When he arrived they were all very happy, unlike they were in the previous 2019.

Five made his way to the main staircase that lead up towards his room.His idiotic siblings didn’t need to see him have a breakdown. _He_ didn’t need to have a breakdown.

_Fuck teenage hormones._

__

__

_“He dillydallied, having a blast jumping through space and time before he came to save us-”_

Five heard Diego screaming at someone followed by multiple people screaming back at Diego. He froze at the bottom of the steps.

_“He didn’t save us, he ruined us! He should have stayed where he was. At least we would have died happily.”_

_“He should’ve just rot in the apocalypse and never came back!”_

_“He doesn’t love us. If he did then he wouldn’t have interfered with our lives.”_

_“He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Some sad old man who had lost his way, lost his family, and now he resides in the body he left them in. He’s a killer.”_

_“He doesn’t belong here, he left us while we grew up without him. We tried to start over with our lives and we did it without him. He doesn’t know us. He doesn’t want to know us.”_

_“He doesn’t know how to love us anymore. He only knows how to fuck things up to get his way, to make sure the timeline follows his rules.”_

_“We’re just pawns in his game of chess. Replaceable pieces he can crush and replace. He killed anyone and anything that threatened the timeline. Mothers, fathers, children. How are we any different from them? He knows how to destroy families. He was ready to kill his own sister to stop the apocalypse. He’s ready to kill any of us”_

Five shut his eyes and threw his hands over his ears. 

_No, no, NO! He did love them. He- he promised he did. He did all of that for a reason. All the killing, all the threatening, all the coldness. They don’t understand. They meant the world, no, the whole universe to him._

_They don’t understand._

_They will never understand._

All of the screaming suddenly funneled into an awful ringing. He blinked open his eyes to discover an alarming flash of stripes.

_Tigers._

They somehow got into his house. _His jungle._

He ripped his hands off of his ears and stormed over to the tigers.

_They were going to pay for what they did to him._

_What they made him into._

Five grabbed an arm of the closest tiger within his grasp and quickly twisted their arm to face upwards. He quickly brought his knee up and struck the elbow. With a sickening crack, the elbow was now bent in the opposite direction.

With the tiger bent over and yowling in pain, he reached up and gouged their eyes out before he gave their head a quick tug to the side and they fell to the ground lifeless.

He heard through the ringing that a tiger had begun to roar at him.

“Shut the hell up!” Five roared back as he punched the throat that was making the noise. They stumbled backwards as Five teleported behind them and swiftly kicked the back of their knees, causing them to fall. 

Five punched them in the face, which caused them to fall onto their back. He took that as an opportunity to stomp on their chest a few times. Their ribs gave way to an explosion of sickening cracks. He hoped that a vital organ puncture would finish them off. 

He was about to stomp on their face when he felt a sudden pain in his shoulder. He reached back to find a knife lodged into his shoulder.

_Perfect, a weapon._

He quickly pulled the knife out and swung it high up into the air, slicing deep into the belly of the tiger who had lodged it into his back as Five swung it upwards.

_Ahhhh, it felt good to be back doing what he knew and love!_

Blood was splattered all over Five now. It was in his mouth, hair, and navy blue uniform. The heat of it mixed with his boiling rage. He grinned widely and let out a little giggle. 

_He’s much too fast for these tigers to stop him._

The tiger in front of him had stopped its charge as blood gurgled from its mouth. It was looking down at the entrails that were spilling out of the abdominal cavity, struggling to hold them in their hands as they slipped around.

With that serving as a distraction, Five quickly brought the knife down into the face of the tiger. He felt the crunch of the skull as it caved away from the force of the impact. 

_He wanted more_

He began to continuously bring the knife in and out of the skull in rapid jabbing movements. .

_Crunch._

__

__

Splat.

Crunch.

Squelch.

_Crunch._

Five stopped when the brains and blood of the tiger covered the stripes on their face. He let the tiger fall to the ground with a sickening splat and crunch as the knife that was lodged in its skull performed one last incision.

Five tensed up as his keen sense detected another tiger was approaching. 

_That was a mistake._

He dropped himself to the ground and suddenly propelled himself up and to the left. His left hand stayed on the ground as his right leg pushed off the ground. He brought his right leg up and into the side of the tiger with a loud thud. He used the moment of his kick and pushed off the ground with his left hand to bring himself to a standing position. 

He took the chance of the tiger being a male, and kicked them in their crotch. The tiger quickly bent forwards, hand occupied with holding the hurt area.

_Bingo you fucking bastard._

Five savagely brought his mouth up to the side of the neck of the tiger and bit down hard. Five felt the steaming blood violently squirt out all over his face and body. Some of it trickled down his throat. 

A nice coppery tang.

As an added damage bonus, he knew he crushed some tissue with the amount of force he bit down with.With that, Five jerked his head back from the fur of the tiger and punched them in the face, letting them fall over. They would be dead soon judging from the amount of blood violently spraying out of their freshly severed carotid artery. 

Five stumbled away, breathing heavily. Through all of the ringing in his ears he could hear whimpering from behind the bar. 

_Someone was hiding. Someone was afraid of him._

Five grinned at the thought of another kill. These tigers had invaded his family's home. They weren't going to get away that easily.

Five stalked over to the bar and found his prey. A tiger was huddled on the ground, crying to itself. Five’s grin stretched into something primal as he pulled a bottle off of the bar. He crouched down and slammed it over the tiger's head, leaving a nasty gash that instantly began to flood with crimson blood. 

Five wasn't done though.

He took a piece of the glass bottle and slowly gouged out the tiger's eyes as it let out a guttural scream of fear and pain. Five slammed the glass into the side of their neck. He brought his foot up and violently slammed it down on the glass, shoving it deeper into the tiger's neck. 

_It was his jungle._

__

__

His fucking home.

Home……..

Home....

_Home?_

The ringing in Five's ears dissipated and were instead filled with his deep panting. He began to rapidly blink his eyes free of the stripes. He saw his home.

_Home._

He _was home._

Five finally willed himself to look around and was met with a truly gruesome sight. He was in the living room at the Academy with the bodies of his dead siblings scattered around him.

_The tigers.._

Five frantically stumbled backwards and hit the wall. His eyes were opened wide in shock and horror. Tears began to roll down his cheeks, making little paths through the blood on his face. His hand came up to cover his mouth that was opened wide, but he quickly jerked it away when he discovered it was covered in blood and gore. His mouth already had coppery blood and flesh inside of it from partially ripping the tiger's throat.

Five had the overwhelming urge to vomit, but nothing came out. Nothing would come up to free the flesh stuck in his teeth. 

_The sins in his teeth._

He opened his mouth to scream out of fear for what he had done, and out of sorrow for his siblings who didn't deserve to die like that. At the hands of their own brother.

_At the hands of a monster._

_"AARRAAAAAAAGHHH!"_

Five jumped awake and found himself finishing the scream from his nightmare. 

_Shit, it was just a nightmare. Okay._

He was sweating profusely and was..... standing in front of his bedroom door with his hand extended to the knob….?

He heard the hurried footsteps of his siblings running up the stairs to his room.

"Five? Is everything okay in there?" Luther's frantic voice boomed from the other side.

"Five?" Vanya called groggily.

"Five? Did you have a nightmare? What's wrong?" Allison fretted in the hallway.

"C'mon little mannnnuh." Klaus whined. "You interrupted my beauty sleep." He pouted before there was a thump and a loud "Owwwwuh!" 

"Shut it, Klaus. Five if you don't answer us I'm going to break down your door." A frustrated yet concerned Diego called out in a sing song voice as he began to jingle the door knob.

Five raised both of his hands out in front of himself and looked at them in horror.

_What would have happened if he hadn't woken up before he left his room?_

Luther began to knock on the door.

_What would have happened if he had left his room?_

Flashes of his nightmare vividly ran through his mind.

_Would that have happened?_

Five looked up from his hands to his jingling doorknob. He slowly began to back away.

_No._

"Five!" Diego was getting angrier as the doorknob began to twist erratically.

Five looked from the doorknob to the door. To where his family was behind the door.

_Not them._

He hit his cold window as he stared at the door with eyes widened in fear.

_I- I wouldn't hurt them._

"Five, four, three- Luther had begun a countdown.

_I was going to hurt them._

Five whirled around and looked up into the sky to see a bright full moon staring back at him.

_Oh shit. He hadn't realized…._

"One!" Luther and Diego simultaneously kicked Five's door in just as Five had teleported away.

_Somewhere away from his family._

"Shit, the little bastard escaped." Diego huffed as the rest of the siblings stepped into Five's room to assess the situation and their brother. 

_Somewhere where he wouldn't be any danger to them._

He had landed somewhere in a dark alley deep within the city. He was gasping for breath as he righted himself against a cold brick wall. He exited the alley and looked back up at the cursed moon that was staring back down at an equally cursed being.

_His aggression cycle had begun._


	2. Blue Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five reveals his secret to his family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention that the Sparrow Academy doesn't exist, as the Hargreeves had managed to jump to their correct and original 2019. The title of this chapter is inspired by Sam Cooke's cover of "Blue Moon" as I just love the melancholy feel and upbeat rhythm of his version that is mixed with the somber feeling of the original version. I felt that it matched Five's own personal feelings of the moon. 
> 
> This turned out to be a long chapter, enjoy! (There are more notes at the end to help explain more of the plot)

Five had wandered around the city in the early morning hours. He didn’t know what time he exactly left home, but he knew it was sometime after midnight. He had been so caught up in saving his family and stopping two apocalypses in the past two weeks that he hadn’t paid attention to the moon cycle.

When he stumbled out of the alley, he stared up at the moon. It was so beautiful and yet so cruel. 

He ended up reading a lot of books about the moon during the apocalypse. He was fascinated in the mystery that was shrouded around it. Reading books about the moon had also reminded him of Luther. Luther had always been fascinated in air and space travel. His room had been decorated with multiple aircraft and rocket models around his room. 

Now the moon just served as a reminder for the sins he had committed. It hung high and full above his head, ready to put him through pain every month. It was always ready once a month to remind him that his actions had consequences

When people started heading out to their jobs around sixish, Five decided to go home. He really didn’t want to, but he also didn’t want to be seen wandering down dark alleyways in his pajamas. 

Maybe hiding in the shadows wasn’t the best idea though.

“Hey kid, you alright? Did you sneak out?” A concerned man dressed in an overcoat and bowler hat called down the alley. When he didn’t hear a reply, he stepped off the sidewalk and headed deeper into the alley.

Five instantly felt the urge to shove the man out of the way and to ignore him. He instead pushed down his urge and gave the man his most convincing smile as he approached him. 

“I’m just taking a morning walk. It’s alway more peaceful in the morning.” Five shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around the alleyway. He shrugged his shoulders and looked up at the man with a fake smile.

The man gave Five a look of suspicion. “Right, and I’m on my way to Wonderland. Now, where’d you escape from Sonny, the orphanage?” 

Five felt his lip and right eye twitch. He so badly wanted to break the man’s arm and to slam him into the wall. The man was testing his dwindling impulse control. 

“Fuck off.” Five grinned widely had he shoved past the man.

“Hey! Listen here young man!” The man began to follow Five, who in turn promptly flipped the man the bird and ran out of the alley. He ran half a block before he ducked back into another damp and dark alley.

_ What am I going to do? I’ll just play it cool and teleport back to my room. I’ll act like I was there the whole time and that I didn’t run away after having a nightmare about brutally killing my siblings. _

“Shit.” Five grumbled as he rubbed his tired face. Confronting his siblings wasn’t going to be an easy task, but at least staying in his room for a bit would give him time to prepare. 

He summoned his powers and blinked back into his room, only to find Luther crouching down and fiddling with Five’s freshly broken door.

“Five!” Luther quickly stood up and accidentally slammed his head into the door frame. He gave a yelp of pain as Five stared in disbelief. 

_ Just his luck that one of his siblings would be in his room. _

Luther tenderly touched his head before he threw his attention back to his smaller brother who had suddenly appeared in front of him. 

“Where have you been? What’s going on?” He was sporting a kicked puppy look that seemed like it didn’t belong on his large frame. A look that was mixed with concern and confusion. 

“None of your business.” Five hissed. He hadn’t expected to run into a problem, a sibling, right away. “Why are you in my room?”

Luther partially turned to the door that was on the ground and waved his hand towards it. “I’m trying to fix your door. Diego and I, um, accidentally ripped it out of the door frame when we kicked it down last night.” He bashfully replied.

“‘Accidentally,’ what did you expect? You have super strength and Diego is fairly fit. Do either of you ever think before you do anything? Now I have no door thanks to you two imbeciles.” Five spat out.

Luther threw up his hands in defense. “Calm down Five, we’re sorry. We were just worried about you. We all were.”

Five could feel his blood simmering just from his interaction with Luther. 

_ This was not good. It would only be a matter of time before he really snapped.  _

He let out a defeated sigh and turned away from Luther. “Get out and go gather everyone in the living room. I need to get dressed and have some peace and quiet time.” Five began to walk towards his closet to put on a fresh uniform.

“That’s it? Okay.” Luther set his jaw tightly, disappointed at his older brother’s lack of answers. He turned around and took a few steps before he stopped in Five’s doorway. “You don’t need to be alone anymore. We’re here for you Five.” Luther paused before he gave Five’s door frame an anxious knock and then lumbered away. 

_ You shouldn’t be. Once you find out what I am you won’t be there for me. _

Five was dreading this meeting, but decided that now would be the best time to talk with his family. His aggression cycle hadn’t gone into full swing yet since it was only about six hours since it started. He needed to tell his family before he got dangerous.

_ Before he would lose it. This would be his warning to them, to be ready to kill him if he completely snapped. So that they could kill him before he killed them- _

Five banged his head into his closet wall. He needed to knock those thoughts out of his mind before they took over completely.

_ He was not going to lose it. Not around his family. _

He finished tying his shoes before he teleported downstairs into the living room. Everyone paused their conversations as their uniformed brother appeared in a flash of blue light. There was an awkward pause before questions were being flung at him. 

“Where the hell have you been?” Diego sprung up from his spot on the couch and pointed at Five. “We didn’t know if you had been kidnapped! All we heard was a scream and when we checked for you, you were gone.”

“Oh cut the bullshit, Diego. You know damn well I wouldn’t let someone kidnap me.” Five snapped back. 

_ Great, Diego had already begun to make his blood boil. _

“Give him a chance to explain, Diego.” Vanya piped up from the couch. Klaus was lazily stretched across her lap with his new cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes. His head was resting in Allison’s lap. She had a concerned look on her face as she stared at Five.

Diego huffed as he turned to sit back down on the couch. Luther walked into the room with a black coffee for Five. He was thankful the big dolt saw how tired he was. Luther handed Five his coffee with a little nod and smile before he took his spot next to Diego on the couch.

Five took a few swigs of his coffee before he shakily set it down.

_ This wasn’t going to be easy. How do you tell the people you love that you dreamt of killing them and it felt extraordinary? _

Five shoved his hands in his pockets and slightly rocked on his feet. “I’ve called this family meeting to discuss something important.” He looked around at his siblings one by one.

“Yeah you have some explaining to do, mister. You interrupted my beauty sleep last night.” Klaus yawned as Allison rolled her eyes.

Five resisted the urge to walk over and slap his psychic brother in the face.

“Klaus, I recommend that you sit up and listen to this.” Five ground out as he glared at his brother.

_ This could mean a matter of life or death for you- _

Five tightly shut his eyes as he fought to push the thought away. He opened his eyes and took a deep sigh before he spoke. 

This was a story he never wanted to tell his siblings. He never wanted them to find out what he was.

What he  _ truly  _ was.

“When I was taken in by the Commission, my body was in a deteriorating state. I was an old man with a frail body topped with malnourishment and god knows what else from being in the apocalypse for 45 years. Let’s just say I wasn’t looking or feeling the best.” 

He looked around at his siblings, who were all wearing slightly confused faces. Luther looked the most confused. Diego and Allison were intently looking at him. Vanya was staring at him in confusion, but mostly with patience. Klaus on the other hand was still laying across Vanya and Allison, but now his hat was off and his head was tilted towards Five.

“They wanted me because I had survived that long in the apocalypse. They had been watching me for a while, thought it was pretty impressive that a kid had survived for 45 years alone. They also wanted me because of my ability.” Five partially had a pouting look on his face as he thought about the last part.

“Those Commission bastards were watching you? They watched a kid  _ suffer _ for 45 years?” Diego seethed as he tightly gripped the armrest on the couch.

“I’m not sure how long they were watching me. It might have been from the beginning. My time traveling definitely would have showed up as a cause for concern on their radar. It doesn’t matter though. I survived all the way up until they picked me up.” Five shrugged and threw a hand up into the air before he put it back into his pocket.

“I became the best of the best. I was quick and efficient, and with my spatial jumps it gave me an edge that no one else had. I became the best assassin in the time space continuum. I had a 100% kill rate.” Five began to rock more and more on his feet. 

“100% kill rate? Is that even possible?” Vanya questioned, tilting her head to emphasize her confusion.

“Yeah bro, sounds like you’re just gloating now.” Diego snickered as he began to play catch with a knife he was tossing up into the air.

Five formed a tight lipped frown on his face.

_ Oh he wished it was too good to be true. He so desperately wanted it to be fake.  _

“If you all have been paying attention, you might have noticed something strange.” Five was starting to get a little heated. Diego’s comment had made Five even more bitter. Luther, Vanya, and Allison all looked at each other confused. Klaus on the other hand watched Diego catch his knife.

_ Did they even care? It didn’t matter. He would make them care very soon.  _

He stopped his rocking and leaned forward. His anger was beginning to mix with mania. His thin lipped frown stretched upwards into a thin lipped manic smile. 

“How did a  _ frail _ ,  _ weak _ , old man become the greatest assassin known to man?” His mania was beginning to edge into his voice. Diego stopped looking at his knife and turned towards Five. Klaus still watched Diego’s knife for a few seconds before he too looked up at Five.

_ All eyes were on him.  _

“They wouldn’t just let an old human man with abilities become an assassin. So instead they altered my DNA.” Five now leaned back to his standing position. Diego had suddenly stopped flipping his knife up in the air. Klaus slowly sat up, a look of utter confusion replacing his groggy tiredness. 

“Altered your DNA? What do you mean?” Luther had an innocent look of pure confusion on his face. His thoughts immediately went to his own body and the gorilla DNA that had been mixed with his. Five didn’t look different though, besides from being in his thirteen year old body. 

“Yeah, what are you talking about? How did they alter it?” Diego began to tightly hold his knife in his hand. He was becoming uneasy.

_ I’m not glad you asked.  _

Five took a heavy uneven breath. “They injected me with the DNA of all of the most notorious killers and assassins of all time.  _ All _ of the serial killers and other psychos and monsters who were bloodthirsty. They are a part of me, their DNA is now mine.” Five quickly looked down at his feet, ashamed and fearful that his most guarded secret had now come to light to his siblings. “They instead made me an inhuman person with abilities.”

An eerie silence fell across the room. He couldn’t bring himself to look up at his siblings. 

_ He didn’t want to see their faces. He didn’t want to see what their expressions would be, now knowing that they were staring at a monster.  _

“What? I-I don’t get it.” Allison was the first to quietly speak up. She sounded so confused, as if Five had told a joke that made no sense.

Five looked up to see all of his siblings staring at him as if he had just spoken in one of the few foreign languages that their father hadn’t taught them when they were children. Diego on the other hand was fixated at a spot on the floor. His jaw was set tight as he had a death grip on the handle of his blade.

“Five? What are you talking about.” Vanya began to question him. 

“I’ll say this in plain english. I am the perfect killer. I  _ AM _ EVERY KILLER!” Five screamed out of anger, venom piercing into every word he said. 

Five’s face was contorted with rage, but his expression quickly dropped as his siblings looked at him with worry and fear.

_ Fear for him? Fear of him? _

Five sighed and looked away from them. He looked up at the portrait of his father that hung high up on the wall to his left. 

_ If only you could see me now, Reginald Hargreeves. He definitely would have asked the Commission, if he had the chance, on how they did it. He would be proud of what his adoptive son had become.  _

“Five….” Vanya softly called to him. 

There was a  _ thunk  _ as Diego’s knife became lodged between elk antlers that hung underneath the railing of the second floor. 

“I’ll make them pay.  _ Every single one of them.”  _ Diego hissed as he gazed with fury into Five’s eyes.

Five sighed. “What’s done is done. It’s a permanent change. They made sure it was irreversible. I was an experiment that was never meant to be undone. My DNA has fully bonded with the killer DNA. If someone were to try to remove it, it would tear apart my own DNA and would eventually leave my cells with no way to replicate. I would die.” 

It was surprisingly Klaus who spoke up next. “So with the serial killer part of the DNA, does that mean you got the other stuff that some killers do? Y’know besides the killing, the uh…” He grimaced at the thought.

_ The sexual urges and cannibalistic side of some serial killers.  _

“No, they somehow managed to remove those and left me just with the predatory and killing urges.” Five admitted as he nervously looked around. He expected different reactions from his siblings.

_ They should be running away in fear. _

Instead, his siblings looked at him with concern mixed with pity. Allison stood up and rushed over to Five. To his surprise, she quickly hugged him before he could protest.

“Oh Five, I’m so sorry.” She whispered into his hair as she hugged him. He didn’t pull away right away. He just let it happen. He was too tired to fight back. Any kind of retaliation on his part would just make his blood boil. Allison let him go and rubbed his arm, looking down at him with a sorrowful expression. 

“Don’t. I have more to say.” Five quickly looked away from her and back down to the floor. 

She quietly moved back to her spot on the couch. It was very unsettling for the Hargreeves siblings to see their oldest brother so quiet and defeated. He was definitely struggling with something.

He took another shaky breath before he continued. “I left last night because I had a nightmare, one where I viciously killed all of you like a mindless beast. I didn’t actually know right away that it was you guys. I was blinded by rage and glee. I only stopped when I had killed everyone. That’s when my vision cleared and I found that it was you guys I had killed. I woke up screaming, only to find myself at my door. M-my hand was near the doorknob. I was going to leave my room if I hadn’t woken up. I left to escape my thoughts, to escape you guys.” 

By the time Five finished, his voice was quivering. He slowly brought his eyes up to each of his siblings.

_ If they weren’t afraid before, they were afraid now. _

They all looked uneasy and slightly horrified. Allison’s jaw had dropped down, fluttering halfway between closed and open as she was struggling to say something. Luther was squirming in his seat, looking across at Allison. Vanya had a pitying look on her face. Klaus looked fearful, but was not trying to mask it. 

Diego’s look hurt Five the most. He was looking his brother up and down, suddenly uneased at Five’s confession. He was trying to see through the sheep’s clothing, looking for the wolf that hid behind it all. The dangerous cold blooded killer in the body of a child.

_ He probably wished he hadn’t thrown his knife so far away from him.  _

“Well, are you stable now?” Diego asked with suspicion in his voice.

“Yes and no.” Five admitted. He saw Diego flinch and then tense up.

“A side effect of the DNA alteration is that I go through an aggression cycle each month. It starts on every night that has a full moon. I don’t know what causes it exactly, but it could be the Charles Hyde DNA.” Five half muttered the last sentence to himself. His confessions were becoming unbearable. 

_ He deserved all of the different looks and emotions his siblings were rotating through.  _

“So you’re like a werewolf? All  _ grrraawrr _ !” Klaus made a growling noise as he formed his hands into claws and scratched at the air. 

“No you troglodyte.” Five tilted his head and glared at Klaus. He was thankful that Vanya reached out to Klaus and pushed his hands down. 

Klaus chuckled to himself before he bolted upright with a sudden realization. “Oh my god, is that why you hate Spaceboy over there? Does he remind you of the moon, of bad times?” Klaus stared at Five as if he had just cracked a secret code.

“No.” Five spat out. “Is that all that your messed up brain could come up with? Was that a serious question?” Klaus held up his hands defensively, but he was trying to hold in his laughter.

Five’s blood was beginning to boil again. “Number Four, I  _ highly  _ recommend that you just shut the hell up and listen.”

_ Please listen to me while I’m partially sane. This is my warning to you all. _

Allison reached up and punched Klaus in the arm, who in turn looked and pouted at her.

“Wait, if this ‘aggression cycle’ starts on the full moon, why did nothing happen on the night of the first apocalypse? It was a full moon when it got destroyed, no offense Vanya.” Luther asked before he turned and addressed Vanya for the moon part. She just waved her hand back to him as a ‘none taken’ gesture. 

“The cycle starts at midnight or shortly after midnight. It wasn’t midnight yet when the moon was destroyed.” Five informed his brother. 

“How did you deal with it in the Commission then?” Diego kept his voice low and tight. He was definitely wary of his brother now, but there was almost a teasing tone to his voice.

“Well once they realized this was a side effect, they sent me away on missions. Afterall, they didn’t want their weapon to turn loose on them.” Five gave a tight smile before he continued. “They either sent me on more dangerous missions or on ones that had a large amount of targets to eliminate.”

“Our little, killing machine brother.” Klaus muttered as he spaced off at some shelves that were to his right. He actually might have been talking to Ben at that moment.

_ Finally, he was starting to get it. Klaus wasn’t so brain dead after all. _

“So what, should we lock you up until you’re better?” Luther nonchalantly asked as he shrugged his arms into the air.

Vanya immediately looked at him, frightened by what he had said. She quickly looked back to Five, fear and pity etched onto her face. She knew what it was like to be locked up because people feared you.

_ When your own family feared you.  _

“Oh god, not another one of your ingenious plans to lock up one of our siblings. He’s our brother Luther, not some rabid animal.” Diego had his head on the back of the couch as he glanced over at Luther before he went back to staring up at the ceiling.

“Quite on the contrary Diego, I am the perfect apex predator. It’s only been a few hours since the cycle began. Once it gets deeper into the week, the more I start to lose myself. It gets harder for me to be in control of my aggression and my impulse control becomes virtually nonexistent. I can snap-” Five snapped a finger for emphasis, ”Just like that. I will become animallike, a beast waiting to tear through its prey.” 

_ He hated to word it like that, but it was true. He needed to strike as much fear into their hearts as he could so that they would stay away from him. _

They were all flabbergasted at what Five had just told them. Klaus sunk into the couch a bit, uneased at what his usually crabby brother had just told him. Luther had a hand on his face, rubbing his chin in thought. Allison and Vanya were looking at each other in worry. Diego on the other hand had his lips pouted as if he was trying to hold in a laugh.

He still didn’t fucking believe him. He thought this was all a joke. His brother in a child’s body was telling him  _ he _ was some dangerous creature on its “aggression” period. It was like Five was making up a story to get attention, like an actual child.

_ He doesn’t have to believe me, but he absolutely should. I might as well be a tornado siren going off, a warning for what’s to come. _

“Like I said though, it only lasts for a week. So once the week is up, I will be back to my normal self. Or whatever you guys consider ‘normal’ is for me.” Five threw a hand out of his pocket and gestured to his siblings. He watched as Diego rolled his eyes.

_ They only knew him as a grumpy old man. None of his siblings had seen him at his worst, at his most insane state. He just hoped none of them would, or that Diego wouldn’t be the one to face his crazed wrath.  _

Diego was pissing Five off, so he called the meeting to a close before his siblings could fully absorb what he had been saying.

“Alright, family meeting is over. Go off and have fun with your lives.” He announced bitterly as he clapped his hands together. “Luther, a word with you if I may.” 

Luther blinked himself out of his thoughts and jerked his head to look at Five. He got up and followed him down into the kitchen. 

Diego scoffed as he got up and strolled away to his room. Klaus watched him leave before he took a deep breath and pushed himself off the couch and slowly shuffled away. Allison and Vanya stayed on the couch, discussing all of the overwhelming information they had just been given about their protective, smaller brother.

Five and Luther wound their way through the maze of corridors, staying silent all the way down to the kitchen. Luther just looked dumbfoundedly at Five, who was now making a cup of coffee to help calm his nerves.

Five turned around and leaned against the counter. “Luther, I need you to be my spotter again.” 

“Uh oookay.” He sounded unsure. “What exactly am I spotting?” Luther looked Five up and down.

Five turned away and made his way over to the coffee pot to pour himself a cup. “Me. More specifically, my behavior. Think about this as the whole paradox psychosis spotting but just for the homicidal rage part.” 

He casually took a sip of his coffee as he gave Luther the time to reflect on the previous experience of watching the two versions of himself go through paradox psychosis. 

Luther nodded his head slowly. “So you want me to follow you around again?” 

“No, that would just annoy the shit out of me. I only need you when I’m interacting with other people. I need you because you know when to take action right away. Plus, you’re big and strong. I can already tell Diego is really going to rile me up. I would prefer to not bump into him this week, but seeing that we all live together again, that would be almost impossible.” He took another gulp of his hot coffee.

“I’ll give you a thumbs down if I feel myself losing it. Speaking would only distract me from trying not to snap.” He looked up at his largest brother, waiting for a sign that he understood.

“Okay, so always be there when you’re with someone, especially with Diego. If you give me a thumbs down, I should stay away and probably usher people away from you?” Luther questioned, waiting for Five to confirm with him that his readback was correct.

“Very good Luther!” Five sarcastically said as if he was celebrating a dog doing a trick. 

_ In all honesty he was just glad that Luther truly understood what was being asked of him. _

“Right so that’s settled.” Luther curiously squinted down at his smaller brother. “Wait, why can’t you just teleport away when you feel yourself going crazy?”

“ _ Because,  _ blinking away would pull too much focus away from trying to calm myself. Besides, if I managed to blink somewhere but I came out the other side out of control, we wouldn’t want a homicidal maniac on the loose. Especially because if I managed to blink I wouldn’t be thinking about where I would be blinking to. I could pop out into a public setting, bloodthirsty with innocent people as the closest thing nearby. We wouldn’t want that now, would we  _ Luther? _ ” Five bitterly ground out his words as he stepped closer to Luther. 

Luther held up his hands in self defense. “I’m hearing you loud and clear, Five.”

He figured he looked a bit intimidating to his younger brother, especially with all of the information he had given at the family meeting fresh in his mind. Five backed away and gave a defeated sigh. 

“Good.” He looked away from Luther and eyed the large entrance of the kitchen. “I’m going to scope out the basement. I would rather sleep somewhere far away from everyone, especially now that I don’t have a door for my room.” Five quickly glanced at Luther.

Luther cleared his throat and threw a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to the entrance that was behind him. “I’m going to go have some time to think and go check on the others. I’ll also go see what I can do about your door.” He turned and lumbered away, heavy footsteps slowly fading as they traveled up the steps. 

Five looked at his reflection in the black pool of coffee sitting in his mug. A sudden spike of aggression caused him to chuck the coffee mug at the opposite wall, sending ceramic shards and hot coffee everywhere. 

_ Dammit. He was just a burden to his family. They would be better off without him. He didn’t want to hurt them. He had just wanted to get back home. He just wanted to see his family, to get out of the apocalypse. This monstrous side of him was one he never asked for. It was one he never wanted his family to see. He was afraid that they would be seeing it soon. It was just a matter of time.  _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five's aggression cycle came from The Umbrella Academy comics. At one point in the comic, Five explains to Allison that his aggression levels were high and that his impulse control was almost non existent. Allison asked him if he went through a cycle, and Five began to compare it to a menstrual cycle (before Allison quickly shut him down). So the idea is obviously not mine (credit to Gerard Way!) but I took the idea of Five comparing it to a menstrual cycle and made his aggression cycle a week long. I also toyed with the idea of it starting on a full moon since there are studies and legends that a full moon can/will make people a little more insane. 
> 
> P.s. Did Five see himself staring back at him in the coffee or did he see something else?


	3. My Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have no update schedule, but I might put a chapter out once a week. I'll let you guys know if I do make myself a schedule. Chapter Title is based off of "My Eyes" from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, as I feel that Five can relate to Dr. Horrible's part in the song. Let me know if I made any errors in here. Enjoy!

Klaus laid stretched out across his bed, absentmindedly twirling yarn between his fingers. His knitting hooks laid untouched across his bare stomach. He had no intention of using them. He was lost in thought, trying to process the worrisome news that his babyish brother had just given him when a voice halted his thoughts.

“What’s on your mind?”

Klaus didn’t even have to look at the person speaking to know that it was his poltergeist brother.

Klaus sighed. “I never got my Menudo.” 

Ben scoffed before he made his way over to Klaus from the corner of the room where he had been leaning against the wall. “I’m serious, Klaus.”

He stopped twirling the yarn in his fingers and looked up at Ben. “Five definitely got meaner.” Klaus pouted.

“Yeah, and he’s about to get more meaner. You can’t be your normal self around him this week. Don’t do or say anything to make him angry. He’s obviously not mentally well.” Ben crossed his arms as he scolded his lounging brother.

“Easy for you to say. Fivey gets mad at anything anybody says to him. I could even just sneeze and he would tell me ‘Go fuck yourself’ or teleport me into Hell.” Klaus tossed his knitting needles onto the floor and rolled over onto his stomach.

Ben rolled his eyes and leaned over Klaus. “Klaus, he just warned all of you. You need to take this seriously or else he might-”

“Yeah, yeah, he might rip my dick off and put it in a blender while he chokes me with my large intestine.” Klaus waved a yarn wrapped hand up at his ghostly brother in a shooing motion.

“You don’t want to find out if that’s true. You need to behave and act like a normal human being.” Ben warned Klaus in a low tone. Klaus showed that he acknowledged the warning by shoving his face in his pillow and groaning.

“It’s not my fault he’s on his murder period.” He grumbled into the pillow. A period of silence passed before Klaus spoked again. “Do you think he’ll be okay?”

The conversation was interrupted as three sharp raps on Klaus’s door jolted him upright and onto his elbows.

“It’s unlocked.” He called out to the person on the other side.

Luther opened the door and closed it as he stood resting against it with his hands behind his back.

“Bonjour, Monsieur.” Klaus yawned as he fully sat up.

“Yeah, hi. Listen, we need to talk about Five.” Luther awkwardly answered. “And I need you to actually listen.” He tacked on.

Klaus waved his hand at the empty space next to him. “Oh don’t worry, ol’ ghosty-poo just gave me a lecture.” 

Ben glared down at his lazy brother. “Seriously, ‘ghosty-poo’?”

Luther looked a bit surprised at that statement. “Oh, uh, good. Hi Ben.” Luther gave a curt nod to where he imagined Ben was. “I need to go over a few things with you though, orders from the man himself.”

“God?” Klaus asked in an innocent voice that dripped with sarcasm.

Ben summoned enough energy to become partially tangible and gave Klaus a flick to the head. He turned and hissed at Ben.

Luther looked dumbfounded and frustrated. “From Five. I’m supposed to be his spotter for the week, but I thought if I told you guys what he told me then we could decrease the chances of bad things happening.” He shrugged.

“Shoot.” Klaus replied as he waited for Luther’s instructions. 

“He wants no one to interact with him for the rest of the week. No getting drunk or high for you, that would risk it.” Luther pointed an accusing finger at Klaus. 

Klaus rolled his eyes. “Luther you silly goose, I don’t do that stuff anymore. Well, actually, I did get drunk with Allison once before we came back here.” He smirked at the memory.

Luther pinched the bridge of his nose at that statement. “Okay, well no more of it. If for some reason you interact with Five and he gives a thumbs down, don’t talk to him and get away from him, got it?” Luther finished as he waited for Klaus to reply.

Klaus threw his hand up and twisted his wrist in a circular motion. “Stay sober and stay away from the murder child. Oh and if he gives me a thumbs down I zip the lips and become Usain Bolt or kiss my ass goodbye.” 

Luther scrunched his face up and raised an eyebrow. “Great, you got the basics. I’m sure Ben will help watch over you. I have to go talk with the others, but Klaus you need to try really hard this week to behave. We don’t want anything happening to any of us.” He cringed at the last sentence. Luther then turned and opened Klaus’s door as he sauntered down the hall. 

“Do as he says and don’t mess up, Klaus. Don’t cross Five’s path and just please, stay sober.” Ben gave a final warning before he too disappeared.

Klaus was now left alone with a stinging feeling of frustration and sorrow. None of his siblings trusted him. He honestly couldn’t blame them though. How many times had he let them down? When he was younger he had little to no control over his powers. He was practically useless on missions except for his combat training that he barely used. He was in and out of rehab as he grew older, and was almost always too high to actually interact with his siblings. 

Five was a grumpy old bastard, even before he disappeared when they were kids he was an arrogant little asshole. Now he was back and more vicious than ever. He had just dropped the bomb that his DNA got scrambled and that he would be angrier this week. 

Now two of his brothers were on his ass about staying sober and not bumping into Five.

_ He could do that. He managed to do it for 28 years. _

\-----------

_ Right, three down and one to go.  _ Luther thought to himself as he slowly made his way down one of the myriad of stairwells in the giant mansion. 

He had informed Allison and Vanya about Five’s instructions. He could tell they were concerned and saddened by the sudden information their eldest brother had dumped on them. As he had approached them, he could hear them discussing plans to make the Academy as peaceful as possible for Five. He interrupted their conversation and gave them the instructions Five had given him. Of course they understood right away, even though they looked at each other in concern. 

Luther himself was still trying to process Five’s dilemma. It was almost unfathomable, but he was in the same boat as the DNA alteration. An aggression cycle though seemed tough and strange. Five’s body had an internal clock that amped up his rage, and that suddenly turned on and off every month. 

_ He spent four years on the very object that made his brother lose his sanity and control.  _

As Luther reached the bottom of the stairs he was on, he could hear a dull yet continuous  _ thunking _ happening down the hall. The last person he needed to talk to was his most concerning.

He peeked into Diego’s room to find him throwing a few knives at a dartboard. Luther cleared his throat.

“Uh, I think darts are supposed to be thrown at that.” He pointed a large finger at the dart board.

Diego scoffed as he threw Luther an annoyed glare. “What do you want Luther?”

Luther stepped into the doorway and clapped his hands together nervously. “I’m here to talk about Five.”

“Oh, you mean the 58-year-old man with daddy issues now turned into aggression issues?” Diego sarcastically dug out.

Luther winced as he felt a pang of guilt resonate through him. He had been a total jerk to Five when he needed his help at that moment. Five had asked his siblings for help and Luther simply denied Five his help.

“Diego just listen, alright?” Luther sighed as he brought a hand up to scrub the guilt off of his face. He jumped when a knife impaled the doorframe mere inches from his head. 

“No, you listen to  _ me. _ ” Diego was now pointing a knife towards Luther. “That little bastard is making all of this up for attention. I’ve been to the Commission Headquarters. They don’t do that shit. They don't do any kind of medical bullshit that twerp is rambling about. They’re too busy fixing and saving the timeline to make a ‘perfect weapon’ or whatever he described himself as. His whole ‘aggression cycle’ bullshit is fake. He just wants the attention from us that he missed for forty five  _ goddamn _ years. None of this is real,  _ Number One _ , you’re just gullible. You all are.” He was now up in Luther’s face with his head angled, challenging Luther to say anything else.

_ Oh, Five definitely wasn’t the only one who was going to get riled up by Diego this week. _

Luther set his jaw tight and let out an angry exhale through his nose as he stared down at his shorter brother. “Fine, believe what you want to believe. Just stay away from him and walk away from him if he gives you a thumbs down.” 

Diego grinned up at Luther. “Oh, if he gives me a thumbs down I’m doing to turn it right side up and challenge him to a thumb war.” 

With that, Luther quickly turned and left Diego’s room before he could punch a hole in his wall or Diego’s gruff face. 

\-----------

By the time Five finished scouting out the basement, it was nearly dark outside. He decided that an old training room from his Umbrella Academy days would suffice him well. It had lots of armored protection both on the inside and outside of it. They were used to test the full strengths and abilities of the siblings’ powers. Lots of cautious planning and detailing were used in the construction of the multiple rooms. If worse came to worst he could put himself in the cell that Luther had supposedly locked Vanya in. 

His only problem was that he was unsure if he would be able to teleport if he went out of control. He never got to figure that part out. During the cycle in his Commission days, he was constantly slaughtering targets to vent out his aggression. There had been a few times where he lost control, but he gained it back only a few seconds later. 

If he wasn’t able to teleport, well, problem solved. If he could then that was a whole new dangerous situation.

_ Especially for his siblings. _

Five was going to try harder than he ever had to keep his temper at bay. He was with his family now, he couldn’t risk hurting them.

_ Or killing them. _

Five froze in his tracks at the thought. He hated killing, but deep down he knew he loved it. He was like a broken record telling himself he hated it. He didn’t want to love it, but his corrupted DNA made him feel ecstatic about the horrid act. 

_The feeling of ripping a living thing apart and exposing their hot innards to the_ _cold_ _outside world-_

Five made a choking gasp as he shot an arm out to support himself against the wall. He wasn’t even through day one of the cycle and his insane thoughts were already fighting their way to the top. He usually didn’t get these thoughts until the end of day two or the beginning of day three. Without his Commission work to distract him and help him through the cycle, they were beginning to run more wild than they ever had before. 

_ He definitely was going to snap sometime this week.  _

“Shit, goddammit!” Five shouted as he punched the concrete wall he was leaning on. He hated the thought of endangering any living thing that became the target of his rage and bloodthirstiness, especially his siblings. 

_ He never wanted to become a monster. He just wanted to get home to his family, to see them again. To protect them. _

“Five?” A soft voice echoed through the maze of concrete hallways that were spread throughout the basement.

_ Speak of the, or a, Devil. _

He slowly made his way towards the entrance of the basement where he assumed the voice had come from. He found Allison and Vanya peeking around the bottom corner of the stairwell that led to the basement. They had sincerely concerned looks on their faces.

“What?” Five huffed as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “You shouldn’t be down here.”

Allison stepped out from behind the corner and approached Five with her hands held out cautiously as if she were approaching a cornered animal. 

“We know, we were just worried about you.” She stopped when she was about six feet away from her agitated brother.

Vanya now stepped out into the open. “We heard you yell. We just wanted to make sure you were safe and okay.”

“I accidentally kicked a box of leftover training equipment. You really shouldn’t be down here though. I don’t want to be around you guys.” He made sure he said his last sentence slowly so that it would hopefully worm its way into their minds.

Allison flinched at Five’s last sentence. She knew he meant well and the context behind it, but it was strange to hear. He had spent two weeks desperately clinging to them to save them and the world. Now here he was, pushing them away. She knew it was for their safety, but it still stung a little.

They all wanted to be closer and start over, to have a chance to be real siblings without their father controlling their adolescent lives. To start over with their brother that they hadn’t seen in seventeen years.

Vanya walked up next to Allison. “We know we shouldn’t be here, Five. We know you need your space. We just-” she took a shaky breath, “We love you and want you to know that we’ll always be here for you. We’re your family.” She took a few cautious steps forward and hugged her brother slightly taller.

Five tensed as Vanya approached him. He sucked in a breath as she embraced him in a tight hug. Allison then stepped to the side of them and wrapped her arms around both of them. He had only just told them hours before that he was a dangerous killer, and that his aggression would be amplified for one week. Any tiny thing could turn him into a murderous maniac, and they knew it.

Yet here were his two sisters, tightly holding him in a tender and warm hug. They weren’t concerned that they were holding a monster. The only thought on their mind was that they were embracing their long lost brother that they loved dearly. 

His tenseness slightly melted away as he felt their love radiate into him.

_ He felt their love. _

Five’s lip began to wobble at the thought. He felt safe in their arms. This was the first genuinely real contact he had felt from any of his siblings in forty five years. It felt so great, yet so strange. 

A new thought popped into his mind, one that threatened to spill tears from his eyes.

_ Would they still love him if he killed one of his siblings? One of them? _

Five sucked in a shaky breath as a sign that he wanted released. His sisters stepped away as he stepped back and turned his head to the side. He tilted it downwards to stare at the ground.

“Leave.” He croaked out as he refused to make eye contact. “Please.” His voice threatened to break as he kept his eyes trained on the ground, not daring to look up at his sisters.

_ He knew his control over himself would only loosen as the week went on.  _

He could see out of the corner of his eye that Allison and Vanya looked at each other before turning around and heading back to the stairwell. Five stole a glance and saw that Allison had a comforting hand on the small of Vanya’s back as they disappeared up the steps. 

  
  


\-----------

Dinner was casually passing by with not one, but two empty seats at the table. There was always a seat left empty for Ben, but now Five’s seat also sat empty. None of the siblings were surprised. They hadn’t really expected him to eat with them. Luther imagined that being in a room with five, technically six, siblings talking wouldn’t be the best thing for Five at the moment. 

They all jumped at the sudden flash of blue light that appeared behind Five’s chair as the man himself stepped out of a tear in space. 

All of his siblings had puzzled looks on their faces, except for Diego, who had a smirk pulling at his lips. Luther frantically looked between all of his siblings and back to Five with his mouth opening and closing.

“Five, what-what’re you doing here?” He managed to spit out as he stared incredulously at his brother.

Five simply pulled his chair back and sat down. Sweat was beaded across his forehead and upper lip. 

“I’m here to eat dinner with my family.” He threw a hand out over the table and swept it around to all of his siblings before setting it down on the table.

Luther blinked. “Okay, but  _ why are you here?”  _ He frantically asked through gritted teeth as he leaned forward.

Five held his hand up to Luther as a ‘stop’ gesture. “I got lost in an equation and ended up missing part of our family dinner. I know what I’m doing, Luther.” 

Truth be told, Five had no idea what he was doing.

_ He was here to prove to himself that he in fact could control himself, that he could control his aggression and impulse control. He didn’t want to be the one controlled by it. He had done it multiple times before, so why was he so afraid of doing it now? _

“Yeah Big Guy, he’s here to eat with his family. There’s no reason he shouldn’t be.” Diego smugly spoke as he turned to look at Luther.

_ Oh yeah, because he was with his annoying family and his goddamn prick of a brother who thinks he knows everything. Not to mention he was in his prepubescent body with goddamn teenage hormones that caused mood swings that only fueled his anger. _

Five felt his eye twitch as he gave Diego a thin lipped smile. Luther was glaring at Diego with his large hands tightly gripped around his utensils.

Vanya, feeling the tension build, quietly spoke up. “What kind of equations were you working on?”

“Nothing important. Just more studying on time travel and other things none of you would understand.” He turned to look at Vanya and gave his eyebrows a bounce before he looked at the food spread across the table. He made a quick frown, deciding that he wanted none of it.

“Hey buddy, you have to give yourself a break once in a while. Eating is important for you.” Diego pointed a butter knife at Five with a sly smirk on his face.

Five’s blood began to simmer. “Thanks for the advice,  _ buddy. _ ” Five tilted his head and gave Diego a bitter smile.

“Klaus, could I borrow some incense from you? I want to see if it will help calm my nerves.” Five never took his eyes off of Diego as he addressed his other brother.

Klaus looked startled at Five suddenly addressing him. He quickly looked at Ben for reassurance and permission to speak to Five. Ben simply raised his eyebrows and gestured at Five with his hand. 

“Yeah, of course. I’ll go get some after dinner.” Klaus managed to smoothly reply.

Five turned to look at Klaus with a slight smile. “Thank you.”

“Oh, and Luther, I’ll do justice for what the old man didn’t do. I’d like to look at all of your moon samples and reports.” Five went on as he turned to look at his largest brother. Luther’s face lit up with childlike glee.

“Yeah, of course!” He grinned widely. He was excited that all of his hard work would be finally inspected by someone.

“Anything else? How about a warm bubble bath and a teddy bear for you, old man. Maybe some pitted dates and a cup of hot milk before bed?” Diego griped as he sat back and crossed his arms. He had a challenging smile on his face.

Five’s blood instantly began to boil. He felt that he was quickly nearing his limit. 

“Diego.” Luther warned in a low voice through gritted teeth. 

Allison jumped in on the looming chaos. “Stop it, he’s our brother. Respect him.”

With that comment, Diego simply rolled his eyes. Five scrunched up his face and screwed his eyes shut. He heard Luther suddenly scoot back in his chair before he forced his eyes open. Luther was staring at him with uncertainty, ready to jump up and prevent anything from escalating. Diego had an amused expression on his face as he too was staring at Five.

“Respect your elders.” He muttered with a shit eating grin on his face.

Five tightly gripped the edge of the table. “What is your fucking problem,  _ Number Two?”  _ He seethed through gritted teeth. 

Diego’s expression quickly turned bitter. “My problem is that you really want us to believe you’re going through an aggression cycle right now? You’re not some fucking washing machine on a setting, Five, and you sure as hell don’t have your DNA altered. You’re lying to the rest of our siblings about the Commission. They don’t do that medical shit, and you and I both know it.  _ I’ve  _ been in there, they haven’t. Don’t lie to them,  _ Number Five. _ ” Diego hissed.

Five’s blood was now lava, and his control over his aggression was mere seconds away from breaking.

“ _ I will kill you. _ ” Five snapped before he vanished from the dinner table.

_ His words weren’t a threat to Diego, they were a warning. _

Allison and Luther immediately began to yell at Diego, who was now becoming heated. Vanya was upset too, and waited for her turn to scold Diego. Klaus winced at all of the commotion and looked at Ben, who was also surprisingly yelling at Diego even though he couldn’t hear him. 

_ Yeah Five had gotten meaner, but Diego definitely had too.  _ Klaus thought to himself.

"Guys, can we all chillax? Us fighting isn't going to help little Fivey and his murder period. If you want I can go get my stash upstairs to help us relax.” Klaus spoke in a loud tone, hoping that his words would get through to them.

Everyone stopped yelling and turned to stare at him. Luther leaned away from Diego and took some deep calming breaths.

“Fine. He’s right.” Luther sighed as he rested his head in his hands.

Klaus giggled. “Awesome! Let me go get it right now.” He scooted his chair back but stopped as Vanya spoke to him.

“I don’t think that’s what Luther meant. Thank you for the offer though.” She said as she offered him a small smile.

Diego jumped out of his chair. “He’s playing ya’ll like a fiddle. He’s making all of you his bitches. Don’t believe any bullshit he says.” He bellowed as he stormed away from the table.

Before anyone had a chance to retaliate, Allison calmly spoke up. “Klaus, go get your incense. Luther, go get your moon samples. Vanya, will you come with me to the kitchen and help gather Five’s sandwich supplies? I want to make sure he eats something tonight.” With that, she got up and headed for the kitchen. 

That night they had opted to eat at the table that they ate at back in their Academy days. Turns out even with their father gone, their mealtime was still horrible. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, the somewhat calm before the storm


	4. I'm Looking Through You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title is based off of "I'm Looking Through You" by The Beatles due to the lyrics matching the siblings' view of Five as he begins to transform into someone, or something, they no longer recognize right before their eyes. Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that pupils can change size due to emotions? They constrict (get smaller) when someone gets angry and they dilate (get larger) when someone is happy

Luther had managed to shove all of his moon samples into a few large chests he found in his father’s office before he managed to make his way down to the kitchen. He arrived to find Vanya and Allison frantically looking for something in the kitchen while Klaus lounged in a chair with some incense spread across the table. 

“What’re you looking for?” Luther asked as he set his chests of moon samples down.

Allison huffed and turned to face him. “Five’s sandwich supplies. Apparently we don’t have any bread, marshmallows, or peanut butter. It’s just going to piss him off more.” 

Vanya finished shutting a cupboard and turned to face the others. “We just had his sandwich stuff not too long ago.” She sighed. 

“Mmmm I don’t think we need to worry about his food.” Klaus spoke up from the chair he was sitting in.

The other three siblings threw questioning glances at each other before looking back at Klaus.

“What do you mean?” Luther questioned.

Klaus pointed over to a corner on the counter. “Well, the coffee machine is also gone.”

Allison’s jaw slightly dropped at the sudden realization. “Five must have taken all of the sandwich supplies along with the coffee machine down into the basement!” She exclaimed as her eyes widened as she realized something else. “Follow me.” She announced to her siblings as she quickly left the kitchen to head upstairs.

Luther and Vanya eagerly followed while Klaus trudged behind them. They arrived in the video room where their father had monitored their lives, unbeknownst to them. Luther was the next one to realize what was going on.

“Right, the cameras!” He leaned onto the desk with the multiple monitors on it while Allison sat down in the chair.

“Cameras? Dad was watching us?” Vanya asked, a little taken aback.

“Perv.” Klaus commented as he looked around at all of the equipment in the room.

Allison began to fiddle with buttons and dials that were attached to the monitors. It took her a few tries, but she managed to find the few channels that were hooked up to the cameras in the training rooms. She pressed a few buttons as she flipped through each training room until she found what she was looking for.

“Look, there he is.” She exclaimed as the other three siblings huddled around her and leaned in close to the screen.

There, pacing around in a training room, was Five. The camera was up in the corner of the training room, making it hard to see the smaller details of the room. They could, however, make out the black coffee machine with a pile of what was hopefully his sandwich and coffee supplies next to it. 

“Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle! He did steal his sandwich stuff.” Klaus chuckled as he leaned closer to the screen. 

Five was wildly pacing at the center of the room with his hands in his pockets. He stopped and looked around before he started to pace again. He began to move quicker as a hand shot out of his pocket and up to his head. He ran the hand through his hair before he gripped it tightly. He was now only pacing about seven feet before he did a sharp one eighty and repeated this cycle. 

“Uh should we be going down there right now? He doesn’t look too happy.” Luther observed as he turned to look down at Allison. She only sighed in response.

“What if we just left the stuff at the door? That way he won’t have to interact with us.” Vanya suggested.

“That could work.” Allison agreed as she pushed the chair back and looked up at all of her siblings. “It will only be a one time thing for him. We’ll be down and up in a matter of minutes, got it?” She assured as she stood up and led her siblings out of the monitor room.

Klaus took one last glance at the monitor as he left the room. He could see that Five was by a wall that appeared to have equations written all over it. Five’s arm was neatly moving as it printed the numbers out before it suddenly waved around wildly, crossing out the numbers as he began to viciously scribble out his work. He left large black scribbles that turned into a giant cloud of black ink before Five whipped around and violently chucked the marker across the room as hard as he could. He stood there breathing heavily before he leaned his back against the wall and slid down to the floor. Klaus winced before he jogged out of the room and after his siblings. 

\-----------

They had gathered Five’s requested supplies of incense and moon rocks before they made their way deep into the bowels of the Academy. The basement held many different corridors mixed with a maze of tunnels. Various clean and tactile training rooms adorned the corridors and hallways. They had all been left untouched since The Umbrella Academy broke up, cold rooms frozen in time. Five had picked the room furthest away from the entrance of the basement. The four siblings wondered if he chose it because he liked it the most or for safety reasons. They assumed it was the latter. 

It took them a few minutes to navigate to the back of the basement and to the training room Five was in. This room had a small observation room attached to it and a large vault-like lock on the outside. Not all of the training rooms had an observation room, but they all had the large locks to make sure that whoever was in there would stay in there until Reginald would let them out after he was satisfied with their training. 

They arrived at the door and set the supplies down on the ground. They all awkwardly looked at each other before Luther spoke up.

“Should we knock?” He innocently asked as he looked to Allison.

She in turn looked at Vanya. “I don’t think we should. He needs as little interaction as possible.” 

“Yeah and he’s probably tired right now. Besides, he’ll find all of this whenever he leaves the room.” Vanya replied as she gestured down at the moon samples and incense.

Klaus, who had honestly spaced out a bit, chimed in. “Oh yeah we definitely shouldn’t talk to him right now. Little Numero Cinco just threw a temper tantrum.”

The other three looked at each other before they turned to Klaus with baffled expressions.

“What?” Luther asked.

Klaus threw a thumb over his shoulder as he gestured to the door behind him. “Well before I left the pervy room I checked to see what he was up to and he angrily scribbled on a wall before he chucked his marker across the room. The poor old man probably realized the coffee we have is decaf-”

Klaus was interrupted by a popping noise and a spark of blue light next to him. Everyone jumped as a sweaty, red faced Five appeared next to Klaus. His jaw was set tightly as he stared down his siblings in front of him before he turned to face Klaus.

“I thought it tasted shittier than usual. Do me a favor and get me some  _ real _ coffee.” He spat out.

“You could hear us?” Luther questioned as he pointed to the training room.

“Unfortunately. You morons don’t know what ‘stay away’ means. You gave me my things, now leave.” He huffed as he pointed down the dark hallway that had led them there. He wiped the sweat from his face as his breathing rate began to pick up. 

Allison had a worried look on her face. “Five, are you alright?” She leaned a little closer to him.

His lips curled upwards into a troubling smile. “I will be once you all leave. Go away,  _ now _ .” Five sneered as his eyes grew manic. 

Luther put his hands up and held them out defensively as Klaus shifted forwards to join his siblings who were opposite of Five. Allison still had a concerned look lingering on her face as she stared for a few more seconds at Five before she began to lead her siblings away.

“Goodnight Five.” Vanya offered in a quiet voice with a small polite smile before she followed her siblings down the dark hallway. 

\-----------

Luther had waited until Allison got up to check on Five with the security cameras. They made themselves cups of caffeinated, or “real”, coffee with the new coffee machine Klaus bought for the kitchen. He made sure to get Five the strongest coffee he could find at the store. He also got Five a coffee mug that had “ _ Better grab my dumbrella, it’s pretty stupid out there today _ ” printed on the side with a small umbrella, hoping it would cheer his older brother up a bit.

Luther and Allison made their way to the monitor room, quietly discussing what they might find. They hoped Five was sleeping, as Klaus said Five didn’t respond when he announced at the door that he had brought him his new coffee and a mug. He also might be busy with writing equations or reading science books. 

Luther turned on the monitor and switched it to the camera of the far training room, only to discover that none of their guesses were correct. As he leaned closer to examine the screen, he nearly spit his coffee all over it. Instead he threw his hand over his mouth to prevent it from spewing out and choked himself into a coughing fit as he stood upright and backed away.

“What?” A sleepy Allison yawned as she swiveled towards Luther from the desk she was sitting on. 

Luther, who was still choking and coughing, pointed to the monitor and then slammed his fist into his chest a few times to knock the coffee loose in his throat. Allison hopped off of the desk and patted his shoulder before she turned towards the monitor. She leaned in close, her eyes blinking more rapidly as the scene in front of her began to jolt her wide awake.

The white walls of the training room had large black masses of scribbles drawn on them. Allison could make out parts of equations that had barely survived the black clouds. It looked as if a child had taken ten sharpies and wildly scribbled everywhere. Five’s new coffee from Klaus was spilled on the ground, the black grounds spread out into a trail as if Five had kicked the pile. Allison could make out a coffee mug that had been smashed near a wall, probably the result of an angry Five who had just spilled his coffee. Five’s pillow had also been torn open with the stuffing inside spread throughout the room.

There was no actual sign of the man who had made all of those messes.

“Where’s Five?” Allison stood up as she began to flip through different cameras on the other monitors. Luther, who was done choking, leaned in close as he too looked through all of the different cameras spread throughout the giant mansion.

“Why the hell do you care where I am?” A smug voice questioned back. 

Luther and Allison both quickly turned around to find Five standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. He didn’t have his normal shit eating grin that usually appeared with his smug tone. Instead he looked serious and pissed off.

“We just wanted to check on you, that’s all.” Luther stood up to his full height and scooted closer to Allison to hide the view of the monitor with the training room on it. 

“I don’t need to be babysat. I’m a grown adult, older than the both of you. In fact I’m almost as old as both of your ages combined, yet you somehow manage to think my mentality matches my current physical body.” Five challenged. He now had his hands out of his pockets as they formed into loose fists at his sides.

“Five it’s not like that. We just want to make sure you’re safe. We know you’re fully capable of taking care of yourself, but we’re just concerned for your well being. It’s what family’s do, they care for each other and worry about one another.” Allison spoke in her calming motherly tone. 

Five sighed an irritated sigh as his hands slowly unfurled. “The only thing you should be worrying about are yourselves. You’re young and have your whole lives ahead of you. I’m the one who gets to worry about you guys. All of you shouldn’t be spending your youth worrying about me.” 

Luther and Allison threw each other awkward glances before Luther cleared his throat and spoke up. “Uh, right. Five, where were you this morning though?”

“It’s none of your business.” Five replied defensively.

“Well as your spotter, I think I deserve to know. Maybe I need to keep a closer eye on you and follow you around.” Luther cracked a smile, knowing the Five definitely wouldn’t want that.

Five huffed and rolled his eyes. “I was in the kitchen. I probably missed you two making your coffee by about a minute.” 

Luther just nodded his head with a thoughtful expression. He was probably telling the truth. That man loved his coffee, and considering that he had spilled it in the training room he would have gone to where he knew there would be more.

A pair of voices began to speak down the hall. After listening for a moment it became clear that it was Diego and Grace having a conversation. The three siblings paused to hear if the voices were approaching them. Luther glanced at one of the monitors behind him, watching as Diego and Grace were walking away from them. 

“They’re heading away.” He announced as he turned back to find Five with his brows furrowed and fists clenched again.

“Dipshit Diego doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t know the true gritty details of the Commission. He doesn’t know the horrendous acts that are committed, or the horrors they did to me.” Five snarled as he clenched his fists harder.

Allison and Luther heard a low humming and a strange warping sound as Five’s hands began to glow blue with waves of energy appearing to distort his hands. They turned to each other with troubled looks while Five had his eyes trained on the ground as he was lost in thought. Five had never been one to manifest his powers when he was angry, whether it was uncontrolled or used as intimidation to help fuel his anger. It was strange to see his powers going off while he was lost in an angry thought, let alone appear on his hands like that. 

“Five, we won’t let Diego mess with you this week.” Luther interrupted Five’s thoughts as he watched his powers immediately retreat. 

Five kept an angry grimace on his face. “At this point it’s more like you should keep me away from that asshole.”

Allison stepped towards Five. “Five, he’s your brother. We all annoy each other sometimes, but you can’t let it get to you no matter how angry you get. Just try your best to focus on yourself.” She advised. 

Five’s grimace only grew deeper as he tilted his head and squinted at Allison as if she had just said the stupidest thing he had ever heard. 

“Allison we don’t know  _ what _ I’ll do.  _ I _ don’t know what I’ll do. I could kill any of you without a warning or a moment’s notice. You don’t know how hard it is to keep all of this,” he threw a shaky hand up and pointed at his head, “down and under control. That’s why I’m staying down in that locked room, yet all of you somehow don’t understand what ‘stay away’ means.” He snapped.

Luther was starting to get a little heated too. 

“Well then why did you come to dinner last night? Why did you get coffee from the kitchen this morning, knowing full well that you could have ran into someone? I can’t be everywhere to watch you. You can’t just tell us to stay away and then come to us!” Luther argued.

“I was testing my self control last night, which turned out to be a horrible idea. This morning I came to get coffee because it’s one of the few things that brings me joy. You could probably see that I managed to spill all of my new grounds on the floor in the training room.” Five shot back as he shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking on his feet. 

Luther and Allison froze with guilty expressions at the mention of the cameras. 

_ He knew that he was being watched. _

“Yeah, and I’ll make sure to give you assholes a good show.” He grinned manically before he took a step backwards and teleported away. Allison and Luther whipped around to find Five flipping off the camera in the training room. Allison sighed and left the room as Luther stared at the screen a bit more before he too left out of frustration. 

\-----------

Five sulked around in the training room for a few hours before deciding to head upstairs. Luther was right, he should be staying away from people. Yet Five had the urge to be around people. He could feel that it wasn’t connected to the cycle or DNA. 

It was the feeling of  _ longing _ .

He was finally safe and home with his family. There were no current looming threats to their lives or the world. His body and mind had finally calmed down enough for him to want to be around people after they got home back to 2019. Their lives were at peace, even his. This was really the first break he had gotten in his entire life. He was constantly trained in his Academy days, constantly trying to survive in the apocalypse, always performing assassin work for the Commission, and more recently he had saved his family multiple times and had stopped the apocalypse twice in the span of two weeks. 

Yet here he was, slowly going insane and becoming bloodthirsty. His longing to be with his family mixed in with his aggression cycle was like water and oil.

They simply did not mix.

He quickly realized his subconscious knew that he was safe for the foreseeable future, so he wanted to be around his siblings that he never got to grow up with. His aggression cycle on the other hand made him become almost instantly infuriated when he was around them in his current state. 

It wasn’t fair.

If Five could survive the remaining five and half days of the week then he would be able to relax. Being on day two only meant that things were about to get worse. Five decided that he would try his absolute best to stay hidden away in the basement. He just needed to grab essential items in order for him to be able to stay in the training room for the rest of the week. 

Five teleported out of the training room and into the kitchen. He found a note on the table that read:

_ Hiya Fivey! Your four favorite siblings have gone out shopping. Vanny is at rehearsal, y’know being a musical prodigy badass. We’ll be back in a jiffy. Hugs and kisses from your loving brothers and sister. _

_ -King Kong, Badass Bitch, Ghostbuster, and Benjaminion _

_ P.s. The Caveman is still home :( _

Five snatched the note off of the table and threw it away.

_ Great, he was alone with the idiotic Batman ripoff. _

Five quickly blinked up to his room and grabbed some fresh uniforms before he blinked them back down into the training room. Thankfully there were showers down there, but they hadn’t been used since their training days so Five wasn’t exactly sure if they still worked. He popped back up to his bedroom to grab some paper and markers to write more equations and a few books to read. After those were dropped off Five realized that he needed more bedding. He had ripped apart his pillow in what he assumed was probably a nightmare.

Five blinked to a closet close to his room to get bedding, only to find Diego leaning in his doorway with his arms crossed.

“I thought I heard you zipping around up here. What’re you doing?” He drawled out with a smirk.

Five could tell right away that Diego’s only purpose of being in the attic was to annoy him and to try to get Five to admit that he was “lying” about the Commission. He simply ignored Diego and opened the linen closet.

Diego made a click with his tongue and pushed himself off of the door frame. “Hey old geezer I’m talking to you. You know, your lie is playing out nicely for the others.” Diego noted as he slowly walked towards Five.

Five felt hot as a surge of anger rushed through him. “ _ None _ of that is a lie, Number Two. You were only there for a day. You merely saw a fraction of what the Commission does. They perform horrible experiments, like making me into the perfect killer. They sliced me open and altered my DNA. For such a dumbass like you though you definitely need to see something in order to believe it.” Five taunted.

_ Diego was about to see it soon. Then he would believe.  _

Five took a gasping breath as he screwed his eyes shut before opening them again. His thoughts were beginning to take a turn.

_ It was starting. _

Diego unfolded his arms as his body tensed. He slowly lowered his arms down to his sides, balling his hands into fists. “You lost your goddamn mind in the apocalypse. Your senior citizen brain is making things up so that we’ll pity you. You might have been an assassin, but that’s it. There’s no such thing as a “perfect weapon” in the entire world, and if there was then you definitely wouldn’t be it. Why would they waste it on an old man? There’s no such thing as a 100% kill rate, that’s humanly impossible you fucking math genius. You’re just the Commission’s bitch, just another one of their workers. They tried to convince you that you were special. Sure you have powers, but that’s the only extraordinary thing about you. They made you believe that you were important, but you’re not.” He spat out as he now stood only three feet away from Five.

_ His huffing is too loud, silence it.  _

_ If you rip his throat out, he won’t be able to oppose you. _

Five stumbled backwards, beginning to pant as he screwed his eyes shut again.

_ Rip the fucker apart.  _

_ Paint the wall with his warm blood.  _

_ Use his intestines and your bare hands as paint brushes.  _

“Cut the bullshit, Number Five. There’s no need to act for me, I already know your secret.” Diego ground out through gritted teeth.

_ You’ll feel so much better when it’s done. _

_ Satisfy your urges. _

_ Accept your impulses. _

_ He deserves to die. _

“Di...Diego.” Five gasped, using what little focus he had left to give his brother a final verbal warning. He needed to anchor his thoughts purely on controlling his impulses and urges. All of them were so close to exploding out of his control. He so badly wanted to tear Diego into bits and pieces, but the human side of him, which was currently fighting so hard to not fade away, didn’t want to hurt or kill his brother. 

Five clamped a hand over his eyes, squeezing his face to focus on the pain. With his other hand, he shakily raised it up and lowered his thumb down. He heard a muffled voice speak in an amused tone before he felt his hand being jerked upright. 

Then, everything went red.

Within half a second of turning his smaller brother’s thumb upright, Diego was suddenly thrown sideways as he was slammed into the wall. He was shocked at the sudden impact, and even more so to find that Five was now pinning him against the wall. He had one hand pinning the wrist of Diego against the wall, the wrist that had the hand he had used to pull his thumb upright. His other hand was wrapped tightly around Diego’s throat. 

Diego was confused at the sudden outburst from Five. His eyes then widened in shock and horror as he watched the pupils in Five’s deep green irises flicker between completely dilated to sudden pin pricks. The pressure of his grip around Diego’s throat changed with his pupil size. His grip became the tightest when his pupils were pin pricks, but went back to the original pressure when they were dilated to an abnormally large size. Five’s grip almost completely loosened for a split second when his pupils were around a normal size. 

Diego realized that his pupils were changing sizes due to Five having an internal struggle. It was Five showing through when his pupils turned to their normal size, only for him to be lost against the sea of pure rage and glee. 

_ Five was practically transforming right in front of him. Transforming into something terrifying.  _

“F-f-f-f-f-five….” Diego stuttered out as he was starting to lose the ability to breathe. The only reaction from Five hearing his name were his pupils suddenly shrinking into pin pricks and the grip around his brother’s throat rapidly tightening. 

_ Holy shit, fuck, it’s all true.  _ Was Diego’s last thought as he felt himself being swallowed by a tear in space. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ope sorry Diego, you had it coming buddy. Aaaand you still have it coming >:\ 
> 
> P.s. I don't hate Diego, he's actually one of my favorite characters. His bold and stubborn personality just makes him easy to manipulate into the story


	5. Am I a Man or a Beast?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being patient as it took me forever to make this chapter. I struggled with how I wanted to write a few scenes so it took FOREVER for me to finally get comfortable with them. As a thank you, this chapter will be longer than usual! ♥️
> 
> The title of this chapter, and the title of the work itself, is based off of "Monster Inside" by NateWantsToBattle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: There's some more gore in this chapter!

There was a loud crash as Diego found himself being smashed through the coffee table in the living room. He laid there on his back, gasping for the breath that was knocked out of him. Moments ago he had managed to piss off Five, only to watch him struggle internally as he choked Diego. Five finally snapped and had teleported him downstairs and onto the coffee table

“Shit….” Diego groaned and coughed as he lay on the splintered table. 

_ Where was Five?  _ He thought to himself as he warily looked around. 

He got his answer when Five suddenly appeared in a flash of blue standing over him. He was glowering down at Diego with eyes full of rage and no recognition.

Diego quickly threw his hands up in defense towards Five. “Shit Five, I’m sorry.” He blurted out. He had never actually seen Five fight, but Diego knew he didn’t want to fight against a trained assassin. Especially not the deadliest assassin across the space time continuum. 

Diego desperately looked up at his brother, hoping he would calm down after an apology. The only reaction from Five was a violent jerk of his head, nostrils flaring as his eyes rapidly blinked. Ever since Five returned back from the future he had been twitchy. This however, was something else.

Diego saw his pupils dilate back to their normal size as his tense posture slightly loosened. Five squeezed his eyes shut and opened them to reveal that his pupils had shrunk back to pinpricks. 

_ Shit, shit, shit.  _ Diego thought to himself. 

He still actually thought that Five might just be trying to scare his younger brother into believing his words. It became clear to Diego though that Five wasn’t acting. 

He was actually trying to kill him.

Five’s breathing intensified as he brought his focus back down to Diego. His face curled into a snarl as he let out a rageful scream and quickly stomped his foot down towards Diego. 

Diego managed to roll away from Five’s foot, springing upright and holding his hands up defensively to his rabid brother.

“Bro, cut the bullshit. I said I was sorry.” Diego warned, not wanting to provoke another attack. 

He just needed Five to snap out of it. Again, Five jerked his head and rapidly blinked. He jerked forwards as if he was about to charge, but immediately stepped back. His head was cocked away as if he had just been slapped. Diego could see that his whole body was twitching. 

“Look, this isn’t who you are. Okay, so maybe you were right about the Commission. Those assholes might have made you this way, but  _ you _ are  _ you _ . You’re not their weapon anymore. You’re home with your family now. Besides, a week is only a week. If stupid Luther could survive the moon, you can too.” Diego spluttered, trying his best to sound like Allison or Vanya.

_ Okay well maybe the whole Luther and the moon thing had no real comparison to the shit Five was going through.  _ Diego spluttered in his mind _.  _ It didn’t matter though as long as he could find something that Five could anchor himself to. 

Five stopped blinking as his glare deepened and his face contorted in fury. 

_ Oh fuck. That is not a good sign.  _ Diego tensed.

Five snarled at Diego and blinked away only to appear behind him. Diego felt his legs buckle beneath him as Five kicked his knees out. He rolled forwards, quickly trying to dodge whatever lethal method Five was trying to use on him. Diego jumped up and whipped around only to be kicked in the face by Five. 

Diego needed to try one last ditch attempt before he truly fought back. 

He scrunched up his nose as he felt warm blood dribble out of his left nostril. “You’re not those killers that are in you, Five. It’s not just them, you still have yourself. You still have the pieces of the young boy who was eager to learn and who wanted to be there for his family, of the man who went through hell so he could return home. You’re my brother.  _ Our brother. Please _ , stop.” Diego begged. He was just desperate and panicked at this point. He had pushed his brother too far. He hadn’t believed him. This was the result of his arrogance and prejudice.

To Diego’s surprise, Five’s hands began to glow blue as the space around them became distorted. They were humming with power, ready to tear a rip into space for Five to jump through. He was shakily lowering his head down to his hands, breaking eye contact with Diego. 

_ He was trying to escape. _ Diego realized. He slowly began to back away from Five, letting him focus on himself. Diego’s movement only caused the humming to abruptly stop as Five jerked his head back up, snapping back to his prey.

Five charged forward as he swiftly ducked down and swung his legs out to kick Diego. Diego stepped backwards, dodging the blow. He nearly missed Five’s hands as they suddenly sprung for his face, aiming to gouge his eyes out. He managed to duck away from Five’s hands.

Diego decided his best chance would to be on the offense now. He began to throw punches at Five. Every punch he threw was easily dodged by Five. Five countered one of Diego’s punches by ducking under his fist and landing a punch straight to where Diego had been stabbed by their father only days prior.

Diego hobbled backwards into the lobby of the Academy, hissing in pain. He doubled over, covering his wound with his left hand. Five lunged forwards and caught Diego’s right hand as it was being raised to his torso. He brutally bent all of Diego’s fingers back. Diego let out a quick yelp of pain as Five then sharply twisted his wrist into a wristlock.

He gritted his teeth through the pain and managed to strike his leg out to kick Five in the ribs. This blow had made the dull ache in his ankle from the tractor turn into intense throbbing. Five only jerked backwards from the kick, not letting go of Diego’s wrist.

Out of instinct, Diego yanked his arm towards him, hoping that maybe he could headbutt Five and disorientate him. Five in turn vanished in a blue flash. He blinked onto the table in the lobby. Diego spun around, catching Five’s foot to his chest. 

He flew onto his back as Five jumped off of the table and stalked closer. Five brought his foot up onto Diego’s throat. His face was flickering between a snarl with teeth bared to a face full of pain and anguish. His eyebrows moved up and down in sync with the corners of his mouth, expressing rage and sorrow.

Diego began to shove at Five’s foot, only to have Five practically lean his whole weight onto his throat. Five was souped up on adrenaline, rage, and bloodthirstiness. 

He wasn’t going to let his prey get away.

Diego felt himself rapidly slipping away, trying to gasp out Five’s name. His vision blurred as he slipped away into darkness, barely catching the frantic voice calling out,  _ “I heard a rumor” _ before he finally fell unconscious.

\------------

Diego jolted upright, gasping for breath as his last thought of being choked bled into his mind. He instinctively grabbed at his throat but felt nothing on it. He frantically looked around and realized he was on a medical cot in the infirmary as Grace rushed over to him.

“Diego dear lay down or you might irritate your wounds. You’ve been injured and need to rest.” She cooed as she grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back down onto the cot. 

He felt an intense throbbing pain in his throat as he became more conscious. He groaned in pain, which in turn made it worse. Diego again reached up for his throat, only to find that his right hand was full of braces. His index and middle fingers were splinted together as were his ring and pinky fingers.. He had a sturdy brace attached to his wrist.

“How long have I been out?” Diego croaked out, which soon turned into a slight painful coughing fit. 

Grace leaned over her son and took his left hand in her own. “It’s only been five minutes dear.” She gave him a gentle smile. 

_ Five. _

“Where’s Five? What happened to him?” Diego anxiously asked, struggling to sit up.

Grace’s smile melted into a worried frown. “You two were in a fight dear. He’s currently being treated by Pogo down in the basement. Your sister had to rumor him to fall asleep in order for him to get off of you. You have sustained ruptured blood vessels, a strained larynx and vocal cords, a strained trachea, a swollen esophagus, sprains to your thyrohyoid, omohyoid, and sternohyoid muscles, possible damage to your thyroid cartilage, and mild to severe ecchymosis on your neck. It also appears that your right hand has multiple sprains and possible tears of the tendons. Your wrist has sustained sprains and slight tears in the flexor carpi ulnaris and radius muscles and tendons, extensor carpi ulnaris and radius muscles and tendons, and in your palmar carpal ligament. The stab wound on your lower abdomen has slightly opened up along with severe inflammation and drainage of serous fluid. You have epistaxis along with ecchymosis due to blunt force trauma to your nose. Your cheek also has mild ecchymosis. Your back has also sustained mild ecchymosis and slight lacerations.” She finished her diagnosis with a smile.

Diego’s jaw stayed shut as he stared at Grace. He honestly didn’t know what half of things his mother said actually were. It was just a part of her medical programming.

A voice spoke up before he could ask Grace any more questions.

“You never knew when to stop, Master Diego.” Pogo interrupted as he stood in the doorway with his hands folded over his cane. “Even as a child you always fought with Master Luther, never giving up and always going far to prove your point.” He frowned at all of the distant memories.

Diego wanted to argue back, but he instead stayed silent. He knew Pogo was right as much as it stung him. His mouth formed a tight lipped frown as he shamefully looked up at Pogo.

“This is the result of your arrogance. You accused your brother of false information based on a place that you spent very little time in. A place where he worked. You flew too close to the sun and in turn you  _ and _ your brother paid the price. You could have been killed today.” Pogo berated as he lifted his cane up and gave it a sharp angry tap into the ground. 

Diego had never been scolded by Pogo before. It had always been done by his father with no emotion and severe consequences. His father had been a cruel man, but this time he actually felt ashamed with Pogo scolding him. 

Diego sighed as he brought his eyes back up to Pogo. “How’s he doing?” Diego croaked out.

Pogo paused, sensing that his words had gotten through to the injured man’s mind. “Your siblings are watching over him right now. He has been sedated and is currently unconscious.” 

He could tell that Diego was thinking about the words he had just spoken. “I highly recommend you not to see him at this moment.” He added after a beat, hoping to deter the younger man and his thoughts.

Diego swung his legs over the side of the cot and let the pain sink in. “I can still walk. I’m going to see him. He’s my brother.” He hissed out as he pushed himself off of the bed.

Grace took a step forward and touched his shoulder. “Diego sweetie, you need to rest.”

Diego placed his hand on his mother’s. “I’m okay mom. Thanks for patching me up.” He thanked her as he passed Pogo on his way out of the room. He heard Pogo sigh as he limped his way down the hall. 

What his mother and Pogo couldn’t see was the mental damage Diego now had. Truth be told he was scared shitless to go see Five, but he needed to apologize to his brother when he could actually recognize his words.

\------------

It had taken Diego nearly ten minutes to make his way down to the basement. His body ached and it hurt to breathe, slowing him down on the multitude of steps the giant mansion had.

He could see from the end of the hallway that the door to the observation room was open. He could hear the faint voices of his siblings conversing with each other. He presumed they were probably talking about how stupid he was and that he deserved what he got. 

Diego peered around the doorway to find Luther, Allison, Klaus, and now Vanya peering through the window into the training room. The window was riddled with equations and orbs of scribbled black marker. 

Vanya did a double take as she noticed Diego. “Oh my god.” She exclaimed as she noticed the injuries on her shirtless brother. 

The rest of his siblings turned towards him. Klaus held a hand up to his mouth while Luther and Allison stared at him. Diego stepped into the room with them as they looked him up and down, taking in the damage that had been done.

“Diego…” Allison quietly muttered. She looked as if she were about to cry.

Diego didn’t know if it was out of fear or anger. 

Luther glared down at him. “What the hell did you do? You were almost killed, Diego. What happened?” He commanded.

“You don’t need to tell me what I already know, big boy. What can I say? I thought the old bastard was lying. I pissed him off and he attacked me. Hell, I still thought he was probably lying and was only pretending to attack me to scare me into actually believing his lie. I only believed him when he wouldn’t listen to me. He was gone, and I couldn’t get him back. He was struggling to control himself. I pushed him too far and made him that way.” He croaked out.

“But in the end,” he waved his hand up and down his body, “I deserved this.”

His siblings stared at him in anger and disbelief. Diego finally learned his lesson, but at what cost? For almost being killed by their brother? Their brother who had warned them to stay away from him and to not anger him?

“You just don’t know when to stop, do you?” A muffled voice spoke, almost with a slur.

Startled, all of the siblings looked through the observation window to see Five stepping into view. He had been hiding out of sight, listening in on his siblings’ conversations. He looked tired from all of the sedatives that were pumped into him. His blazer, sweater, and tie were gone. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned to assess any injuries on him.

“Five?” Vanya questioned, astonished that he was up so soon.

It was Allison’s turn to be concerned. “How are you up right now? You were just sedated.” She questioned as she went up to the glass to observe him.

He ignored her as he groggily wiped away at the marker that decorated the window. Once he had wiped himself a completely clear little window to peer at his family through, he got a good view of Diego. 

His eyes rapidly blinked as he stood up tall and backed away, suddenly more awake. His expression at first was that of shock, which then twisted into horror, anger, and shame. His breathing rate picked up as he noticed the damage Diego had sustained.

_ The damage he did.  _

His siblings looked startled and ready to flee at his sudden movement. His eyebrows pointed upwards as his expression finally fell to one of guilt and shame. He took a shaky step back towards the window.

“Turn around.” He asked Diego. 

Diego sighed as his head dropped low. “Five-” 

“Now.” Five ordered, his breathing slowing down. 

Diego reluctantly turned around to the horror of his siblings and Five himself. This was both his and their first time seeing Diego’s back. His back was decorated in purple and red splotches. Little cuts were spread around like confetti. The heavier bruising and scrapes were on his upper back. Five heard the shocked gasps of his siblings. He saw the way they looked at Diego’s back, mortified.

They were fearful and concerned, scared of the injury Five had caused.

Diego’s nose sported a bandage crusted blood that formed around his nostril and lip. He had fresh gauze over the stab wound he had received from their father. A large oval shape bruise had formed across his chest. The fingers on his right hand were splintered along with a brace around his wrist. He now also had a brace on his ankle.

His neck was the worst to look at. There was bruising with tons of broken blood vessels across his throat. Five didn’t remember what had happened, but he could see that there were dull bruises in the shape of fingers outlining the large bruise. Diego must have been strangled twice. He could tell by Diego’s voice and the way he swallowed that it was really hurting him. 

_ All of that was caused by him. _

Five looked down at the floor in silence. “Diego tell me how you got every one of those.  _ Every. One. _ ” Five spoke in a dangerously low tone.

Diego nervously turned around and glanced at his siblings. “Five it’s alright. W-we don’t have to talk about it.” He stammered.

“Please Diego.” Five assured him.

Diego took in a deep breath as he shifted his weight on his feet. “My back was from you dropping me onto a coffee table in the living room. My nose is from you kicking me. My side is from you punching me in the stab wound. My hand is from you bending all of my fingers back. My wrist is from you putting me in a wrist lock. I then kicked you in the ribs. My chest is from you also kicking me in the ribs.” Diego paused. His lips quivered as he tried to form his next words. “My n-n-n-neck is from you first choking me with your hand when you snapped. You then stood on m-m-my neck.” Diego quivered as his voice got quieter when he started to stutter. 

Diego heard Five make a scoffing noise. He wasn’t sure if Five laughed or if he had quickly held back a sob. 

“You tried to fight it Five. I saw it myself. Your eyes, they changed. You even tried to teleport away. I saw you, you were fighting for control.” Diego tried to reassure Five, stepping closer to the glass.

Five slowly looked up at his bloody and bruised brother. “Yeah, and a hell of a lot that did. What  _ ‘it’  _ are you talking about? That was me.  _ All _ of that was me. I was fighting against myself. There was no  _ ‘it’, _ there was only a monster.” He finished in a low voice.

“Five, don’t say that.” Vanya interrupted, slightly shaking her head.

“Vanya, please. I don’t need you to play peacekeeper right now.” Five scoffed in a low tone.

“I might have tried to control myself, but that obviously didn’t work now did it. All of that  _ taunting _ you did and the lies you told yourself, look where that got you.” Five stared Diego right in the eyes. “You were exposed to the truth by almost  _ dying _ . You were so close to being killed, Diego. By your own  _ brother _ . I had no control over myself. You are so  _ goddamn _ lucky that they,” he threw a pointed finger at his siblings, “found us. You are so lucky Allison rumored me. I wouldn’t have stopped despite your cries for help and pleas for me to stop. I would have enjoyed killing you, only to snap back to realize what I had done. The killers inside of me Diego, they scream for bloodshed. Every. Single. Day. I wake up with the finest impulses known to man. I hold them back for the safety of others and for my own sanity. The  _ one _ week I ask not to be bothered because my self control over my rage is paper thin, you test it because you thought I was faking it based off of some shitty facts you pulled out of your ass.” Five reprimanded.

Five could feel all of his siblings staring at him. He could tell that Klaus and Luther had their mouths partially hanging open in pure shock. Vanya and Allison both looked unnerved and ready to protest his words. Diego on the other hand had his jaw set as he had a guilty look on his face. His eyes bore straight back into Five’s. 

He  _ had  _ just been scolded by his older brother who had warned him that something bad was going to happen. 

“I’m a killer, Diego. You saw a side of me I never wanted you,  _ any of you _ , to see. You almost got killed by my hands. The beast of the jungle almost had its day.” Five hissed in an eerily quiet voice. 

Concerned looks were traded between the siblings at Five’s self degrading sour speech. Diego slowly walked towards the glass that separated himself and his hurting brother. Even though Five may have left visible damage on him, he knew he left equal damage to Five’s mind. 

Diego leaned down and touched his hand to the glass in front of Five. He had never meant for this to go wrong. He was a self righteous bastard for not listening to his older brother. He had almost been killed today from a mistake he made.

“Five, I’m sorry.” Diego choked. His throat was becoming even more tighter from the emotions that were beginning to bubble up. He just wanted Five to know that he truly was sorry.

He watched as Five blankly stared into his eyes as he addressed his siblings. “Consider today’s unfortunate event a final warning to all of you. I will kill any of you next time. All of you, get the hell out.” He growled out through gritted teeth.

He then hung his head down as his siblings slowly marched out of the observation room. Diego’s hand remained pressed against the glass before someone beckoned him out of the room. His hand slowly lifted as he too limped out of the room. 

Five didn’t have enough energy to properly scold Diego. Truth be told the sedatives that were still in his bloodstream had him feeling dull. He was thankful for that though. He knew that without the sedatives he would have been close to losing it again when he was berating Diego. Now that they were slowly leaving his system, Five could feel himself growing more and more frustrated. 

Siblings were frustrating things. He went through Hell and back to return to them and to save them. He would do anything to protect them. Apparently they wouldn’t do the same thing for him. This was his way of protecting them, but just as always they almost never had a clue. 

They couldn’t follow simple directions for one week.

\------------

They had all quietly marched up the basement steps, stunned from the event that had just happened. Luther led them into the kitchen, spinning on his heel to glare down at Diego. 

“You’re a piece of shit.” He seethed as he jabbed a large finger towards Diego.

Diego didn’t even care to retaliate against dumbass Luther. Besides, why would he fight against the truth? He had always been one for justice being served. Even he knew that was a fight he couldn’t win. 

He was always trying to be the best Hargreeves, the perfect leader. He had fought too hard against bullshit information he thought he knew and was handed the cold hard truth. He was an idiot. The Commission were sick freaks. They were experimenting on people, trying to make the perfect killer to carry out their deeds. His brother ended being up their perfect product, one that had not a single percentage of failure. They didn’t care if Five was practically fighting against himself every day, suppressing the dangerous urges and impulses he had. They only needed to point him in a direction to get the job done. As long as he didn’t turn on him, they didn’t give a single shit about his well being.

“I’ve heard that one before. I was a piece of shit today and almost died. I don’t need you telling me something I don’t know. Don’t worry big guy, I’ve learned my lesson.” Diego insisted sarcastically. 

“I don’t think you have.” Allison piped up. She folded her arms across her chest. “Five almost killed you. Diego, what exactly did you say to him?”

Diego rolled his eyes. “I told him that his lies were really fooling everyone but I wasn’t fooled by his bullshit. I said that his old man brain got messed up in the apocalypse and that he was saying all of this stuff so that we would pity him. Told him there was no such thing as the ‘perfect weapon’ or a 100% kill rate. I also told him that the Commission made him feel important but that was the only thing special about him.” 

“You were wrong.” Vanya cut in, angry at her brother. 

“Well no shit. I figured that out when I realized he was gone and wouldn’t snap back. Look, I already said I learned my lesson so can ya’ll get off my ass now?” Diego snapped back. He was tired and in pain. For once he just wanted to rest.

“Diego we had to sedate him in fear that he would wake up not himself. What you did was so unacceptable. You did the exact opposite of what he asked.” Allison retorted, glaring at him.

“You told him his problems weren’t real based on a place you were in for less than a day. He worked there, Diego, and yet you thought you knew more than him. You had to be  _ number one _ , you had to be above him. You thought you had to correct  _ his _ experience. What happened to Team Zero? What happened to all of us being equal? Some Zero you were today.” Luther bellowed.

Diego angrily shook his head, ignoring the pain that shot through him. “I learned my  _ goddamn _ lesson. How many times do I need to make myself clear? I screwed up and I apologized. Now all of you can shut the Hell up!” He hissed back. 

Diego began to leave the kitchen when Klaus stopped him in his tracks.

“Uh, Diego? Ben says ‘You were willing to fight against the man who brought you all back here? He killed for you, Diego. I sometimes see his victims, the ones he killed in order to keep his family safe. I’m glad you didn’t join my side today. It’s lonely here.’” Klaus quietly trailed off.

Diego’s face fell to a painful expression before he left the kitchen and retreated to his room. He fucked up big time today, but he wanted to fix what he did wrong. He needed to make things up to Five.

\------------

It was around one in the morning, the beginning of day three, as Five sat on the floor in the training room, gripping his hair tightly as he sat against the wall. He was a damn grown man and yet here he was acting like a pathetic little kid. 

He loathed seeing the full moon during his Commission days. He knew that when there was a full moon he would have a busy week ahead of him. It was always the busiest week for him, as the Commission knew that if he didn’t have something to vent his aggression out on everyday he would most likely take it out on them. 

He would either be sent on difficult missions or ones that involved multiple targets, like a war. It was easier that way for him and the Commission, he was able to efficiently be aggressive and get his job done. He found that it was also easier as a grown man to control his aggression. Now without his Commission work to help control himself he was practically losing his mind. 

Scratch that, he  _ was  _ losing his mind.

Shortly after his siblings left and the sedatives finally faded away, he had time to think about what had happened. The last thing he had remembered was getting angry at Diego. He had dangerous thoughts flooding into his head before he gave a frantic thumbs down. He couldn’t remember anything after that.

He had woken up back in the basement with only his white dress shirt on the upper half of his body. It had been opened up, Five assumed to assess if any wounds were on him. He felt a dull ache in his ribs on his side where a bruise was blooming. He also felt the uncomfortable sensation of an IV in his arm as he tiredly pulled it out. 

Five had heard quiet voices from another room slowly come into focus. He fought the grogginess as he sat up on the cot and let his senses slowly return back to him. He could make out that there were four people watching him from the almost blacked out observation room window.

_ His siblings, but one was missing. _

Five clumsily teleported to the corner of the room, just out of sight of the window. As he became more aware of his surroundings he could make out that his siblings were talking about him. It hadn’t been long before Diego made his way into the room. Five heard his confession, which made his heart race and drop simultaneously.

He had lost control of himself and nearly killed Diego. Diego still hadn’t believed Five until he almost died. Only then he realized Five was telling the truth. 

Five observed the damage he had done to his younger brother. He was mortified at what he had done. It was Diego’s throat which left him feeling scared, scared that he had been that close to killing him. Diego had tried to assure Five that he wasn’t completely gone in the moment, that he was still fighting for control. 

Five had no memory of those moments though. He felt no recognition of doing anything to stop himself.

Five had multiple layers to himself. He was an old man trapped in his own younger prepubescent body. He now also had his older personality being influenced by moody teenage hormones. Five had his familial layer, one that threw away all self care and that would do anything to protect his family and keep them safe. He had his assassin layer, which practically shut off all of his emotions and morals and held almost all of his killing skills. He had his trauma from both his childhood and apocalypse days. There was a layer he didn’t like to talk about, the layer that held all of the changes that came with his DNA alteration. It’s where his bloodthirstiness, killer instincts, and urges were held. They were manageable overtime however as he grew used to them and figured out how to control them. The last layer is what he feared the most. Deep inside of him was a beast, something primal that only knew how to slaughter and mangle. It was a beast that knew no loved ones, one that was constantly bloodthirsty and would never be satisfied. It honed in on his urges and instincts and tested his self control.

It was a part of him.

_ It was him. _

He had to question himself.

_ At this point, was he a man or a beast? _

His siblings had left and Five threw himself into a panic attack. The realization of what he had done to his brother and how it had come to that point had finally come crumbling down on him after the sedatives had fled away.

Now here he was, hours later gripping his hair as his thoughts raced at what he had done. Five felt useless and pathetic. He couldn’t ever control himself in front of his family. Here he was, a 58 year old man who couldn’t control himself.

_ How goddamn pathetic. _

Five needed to take a walk to help clear his mind. He didn’t want to pace around the starch white walls of the training room. He had been doing enough of that, and quite frankly it was giving him a headache. He needed out. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to be upstairs to walk around. Everyone should be asleep so he didn’t risk running into anyone. He supposed it also wouldn’t hurt if he stopped at the bar to grab a drink. 

Five sighed as he pushed himself upright and blinked himself outside of the training room as began his way down the dark hallway.

\------------

Five made his way up into the kitchen where he stopped to grab a glass of water to carry with him while he walked. He decided against having a drink as it would risk his aggression levels going up even more. He had never been an angry drunk, and hadn’t actually planned on getting drunk, but he didn’t want to risk having his guard down from the alcohol. 

Five had made his way into the living room and discovered a troubling sight. A wooden coffee table had been smashed against the ground and was shattered into pieces.

_ Had that happened during his fight with Diego? _

Five squatted down to look at the pieces of the table. Obviously something heavy had been dropped onto it. He felt immense shame looking at the table, and quickly moved away from the table and wandered out into the lobby.

Five saw shoe marks on the table in the lobby. He could tell from the size and sole pattern that they were his. As Five leaned in closer to try to find any other pieces to the puzzle of what had happened, earlier he heard a creak off to the left of him.

He whipped his head sideways and saw a figure hidden in the shadows on the staircase. The person stood frozen with two large duffle bags slung over their shoulders. They appeared to be dressed in all black, with gloves and a mask on. 

Five could tell that the person was staring at him as he glared back at them. The figure slowly reached behind their back as they pulled out a large knife from behind their back. 

_ This was someone robbing the Academy. _

Five turned to face the burglar as he set his glass of water down on the table. “You know it’s a pretty stupid idead to rob a place full of superheroes with special ablilites you know?” He drawled out with a smirk, looking around. 

_ Ah, someone he could take his anger out on who deserved it. _

Five was about to teleport behind the punk when he detected movement behind him. He spun to the ground, kicking the legs out from underneath his attacker.

Five watched as the man fell to the ground and quickly scrambled backwards.

_ Ah, prey. _

Five shook his head at the thought. This would just be a quick beating against some human punching bags. He would simply take their duffle bags and scare these shit heels out of the Academy. This was his practice for self control, something that he had failed so easily earlier. 

He needed to focus everything into controlling himself.

Five cocked his head side to side and rolled his neck around. “Alright, which one of you Buckaroos wants to go first?”

The man on the steps quickly threw down his duffle bags and charged at Five, knife raised in the air. Five simply teleported behind the man and sent him flying to the ground with a kick to his back. The man quickly flipped over onto his back, blood dripping from his ear where the knife had sliced it when he hit the ground. He stared up at Five, scared and confused at what had just happened.

Five slipped his hands into his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. “Like I said, we’re superheroes. That means we have abilities. Also that’s why you never run with sharp objects.” Five grinned. It felt good to play with these men. 

_ Make him bleed even more. _

Five shoved the thought out of his mind. It wasn’t what he wanted or needed right now. In fact, he was feeling more assured that he could control himself with the right amount of effort. Maybe he could just break one of their arms-

_ SMACK _

Five blinked his eyes open and choked out a breath as if he had been holding it. He took a few gasping breaths to ground himself. His mouth strongly tasted of metal. Five quickly spat onto the floor, discovering that his saliva was tainted pink with red blotches. 

He felt a sticky wetness on his body as a sickly metallic scent slipped into his nostrils. Five looked down at himself and discovered that he was covered in blood. He whirled around to discover a gruesome sight. 

There in front of him laid the mutilated bodies of the two robbers. One man had his entire abdominal cavity sliced open with a few shards of glass sticking out of his organs. His neck had Five’s water glass impaled deep into his throat. The knife had been neatly discarded off to the side.

The other man had his left elbow bent in the complete opposite direction. His face had been brutally smashed in as Five noticed a large spot of blood and brain matter on one of the marble pillars in the room. The man’s right wrist had a bite mark on it with even a small chunk of flesh missing. 

Five let out a small exclamation of terror as he backed away from the bodies. “No, no wait-” He gasped out.

_ He had lost control without warning. This was the price he paid for only focusing on his self control and not his combat instincts. _

That was the thing though. Five felt practically no warning sign. There had only been two intrusive thoughts but he had easily managed to push them away.

_ How did this happen? _

Five turned and ran up the stairs before teleporting the rest of the way to Luther’s room.

“Luther, wake up! It’s an emergency!” His voice quivered as he yelled. He hated how he sounded like an actual scared thirteen year old.

Five could hear heavy footsteps and a loud thud followed by a muffled, “Shit!” on the other side of the door. Luther opened the door as his sleepy eyes popped wide open at the sight of his smaller brother.

“Holy shit. Five, what happened?” Luther took a cautious step away from Five.

Allison’s door began to creak open. “Seriously guys it’s like 1:30…..” Her voice trailed off as she laid her eyes on Five.

“Oh my god, Five are you okay?” She frantically asked, stepping out into the hallway.

Truth be told, Five was trying not to panic. He was covered in blood and there were two dead guys downstairs that he had killed because he lost himself. He felt like a wild animal running away from its kill. As his adrenaline melted away, Five felt a throbbing pain on the back of his head.

_ Yeah, he was not okay. _

“I was walking around when I came across two robbers in the Academy. I was planning on just scaring them out but something happened and I ended up killing them.” Five croaked out. 

He was such a fucking idiot believing that he could handle himself. It was a horrible experiment gone wrong. He was so fucking stupid for trying. He was a man changed into a monster. You can’t just simply deny your goddamn instincts, especially now when there was a paper thin veil of self control holding them down.

Five wanted to run away, to get away from his family. They weren’t safe with him at all. The torturous part is that he couldn’t go anywhere else. Nowhere would be safe for him. 

_ He couldn’t go out into public. Maybe the woods? Yeah, that would be his safest bet but if something happened and he managed to find is way into a public space and lost himself then- _

Five was startled out of his thoughts by Luther snapping his fingers in front of his face. 

“Hey, you with us? Did you hear what we just said?” He asked, staring down at his smaller brother in concern.

“No.” He admitted quietly. A door creaked open behind him as he turned to see Diego peeking his head out into the hallway.

“What’s with this bullshit that’s…..” He trailed off as he saw faint bloody footsteps leading towards Allison and Luther’s rooms. He blinked his sleepy eyes awake as he saw a bloody Five staring back at him.

“Shit, who or what did you kill?” His raspy voice quivered as he asked. 

Five clenched his fists. He didn’t like the way Diego asked that. He hated that it was obvious he did something wrong. It was more upsetting though that Diego seemed slightly afraid of him. 

Luther began lumbering down the hall. “We’re going to go find out.” He answered, implying that Diego was to follow him. Diego took another glance at Five and then to Allison before he followed his larger brother down the hall. 

Allison looked down at Five, who was now staring down at his bloodied hands. His white dress shirt was now tie-dyed with red. The coppery taste of blood was still faint in his mouth. He looked back up at his sister with eyes full of misery.

“I didn’t want to Allison. I didn’t mean to. They can’t go home now because of me. I’m no good. I’m a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong on this earth, in this timeline. I’m not the human brother who left you seventeen years ago. I’m a monster trying to fit into a family but I can’t. You’re not safe with me. I’m a broken puzzle piece that just can’t fit.” He whispered. 

Allison could feel tears building up in her eyes. Her brother was suffering. He had made himself the way he is now so that he could get back to them, his family. It’s still haunting him even though he escaped his nightmarish job, the one thing that helped him cope. He will live out the rest of his life like this, trapped in the wrong body with bad blood he can’t escape.

Without warning, Allison bent down to hug her brother. Five slightly jumped, not expecting the warm hug. 

“What are you doing? I’m covered in blood, you’re going to get blood on you.” Five protested.

In turn, Allison squeezed him tighter. She held her brother who she hadn't seen in seventeen years. She didn't want to lose him again and didn't want him to lose himself. There were only four days left of Five's nightmare.

She let go of him and looked him in the face. He looked exhausted and guilty. She wiped some blood off of his face. It was actually sad seeing him let her touch him and show him affection. If Five weren’t exhausted and in the right mind he would have shoved her away or berated her. 

"Let's get you cleaned up, okay? Go wait in the bathroom while I get you some pajamas." Allison gently asked.

Five rolled his eyes. "Allison I'm not a baby. I'm a grown man, I can take care of myself." He huffed.

"I know that. I just thought you could use some help. Now, go to the bathroom." She ordered as she walked away before Five could refuse.

\------------

Luther and Diego came across the gruesome scene. Diego bent down to one of the duffle bags on the steps and dug through it. It was full of Umbrella Academy merchandise. Five was right, they were robbers. 

But why would they rob the Academy?

They examined the mutilated bodies, trying to recreate the attack in their minds. Luther looked disgusted, while Diego was angry that these two assholes had broken into his family’s home and thought that they could get away from it. Little did they know that there was a guard dog, or more like Five just happened to come across them.

Luther crouched down by one of the men. “Is this a glass from the kitchen?” He asked as he looked at the man’s throat.

Diego stood over his brother. “Yeah, looks like it. Poor bastard didn’t even stand a chance.” He looked over to the man who had half of his head on one on the pillars in the room. “Him too. Neither of them stood a chance against Five.” He mumbled.

To be honest Diego didn’t want to be there right now. Seeing these two men made him think of his fight he had with Five. 

He could have ended up like these men.

“Uh, what do we do now? Should we go get Grace.” Luther asked as he stood up.

“No, I don’t want to put that task on her. She probably didn’t even hear this considering she didn’t notice that Hazel and Cha-Cha attacked us. Let me see if Herb can help us.” Diego suggested as he made his way to the nearest phone. 

“Right, I’ll uh….oh! I’ll go check the cameras.” Luther beamed. 

Diego stopped in his tracks. “Cameras? What cameras?” He questioned.

“Dad had been watching us. There’s cameras everywhere.” Luther explained as he spun his finger in the air.

Diego looked around. “Weird bastard. I’ll come find you when I’m done.” He sighed as he left the room.

\------------

Five had finished his bath in silence, washing the foreign blood off of him. He brushed his teeth to get the slight copper taste out of his mouth. He looked at himself in the mirror and only saw himself staring back. He wanted to punch the mirror, but decided against it.

As Five left the bathroom, he found Allison waiting for him. She was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She had changed and had cleaned the blood off of herself. 

“What are you doing?” Five grunted.

“I want to show you something.” She announced as she pushed herself forwards. 

Five shook his head. “Not now. I just need to rest.” He sighed.

“Please Five, I want to help you.” She quietly insisted.

Five just stared at her as she turned and walked towards her room. He reluctantly followed her, unsure of what was in store. He was being honest when he said he needed to rest. He was exhausted and his head was starting to give him a killer headache. 

She sat on her bed next to a photo album. She picked it up and patted the space next to her as she looked up at Five. Five gave her a questionable look before he got onto her bed.

“I wanted to show you a part of my life that you missed while you were gone.” She sofly soothed.

Five’s confused face fell to a soft and shocked expression. Allison knew that this meant a lot to him, even though he never actually had said anything about it. She could feel that he wanted to catch up with his siblings but he didn’t know how or was too shy to ask.

Allison began flipping through the pages. The first pictures were cut out from a few news articles on The Umbrella Academy after Five had vanished and the Academy kids were older. Those slowly evolved into pictures of the beginning of Allison’s acting career, which started shortly after she left the Academy. There were early pictures of Patrick, which slowly turned into wedding photos. 

As Allison was about to flip the page, Five’s had shot out as he laid it on the page. Allison looked at him, confused. She found that Five was staring at a picture of her in her wedding dress. She looked at the picture. She was in her wedding dress, laughing. She remembered at that moment she had been so happy and was overjoyed.

Five removed his hand from the book, signaling for his sister to continue. The next few pages were filled with Allison at big movie events and even a few behind the scenes pictures of some of her movies. Those slowly faded into the birth of Claire. Baby Claire changed from toddler, and from toddler to a child. 

Allison looked over at Five who was also closely examining the pictures of his niece.

“You know, she really wanted to meet you. She couldn’t really grasp that you probably weren’t coming back. I haven’t even had the chance to tell her that you’re home again. She would love to see you.” Allison consoled.

Five looked up at her with a soft smile. “I would love to see her.” He softly beamed.

Allison smiled back at him as she took one last glance at her photo album before she closed it. They sat in silence before Allison felt Five scoot closer to her. She was surprised to feel him tightly hugging her.

“Thank you.” He whispered in her ear before he let her go and he slid off of her bed. 

Allison felt tears welling up in her eyes as she looked up at Five. He softly smiled at her.

“Goodnight, Allison.” He nodded before he blinked away.

\------------

Turns out Herb was okay with cleaning up for them as long as Five wasn’t around. He sounded scared when he heard about the incident, but Diego couldn’t blame him. He assured Herb that Five wouldn’t be around and ended the call.

Diego had managed to find Luther after wandering the halls for a few minutes. He looked around at the equipment and the screens.

“Wow, so this is how the old man found out if we didn’t follow his rules.” He whistled.

Luther looked over his shoulder at his brother. “Yeah, pretty interesting right? I have the camera footage from the lobby here.” He affirmed.

Diego leaned over Luther as the two of them watched Five fight with the robbers. Five had only happened to stumble across the robbers. He was teasing them about robbing a house full of superheroes. At first he was just playing with them. Things quickly escalated when Five’s focus was on the robber he had tripped. He hadn’t noticed the other one, who was now standing behind Five. He gave Five a hard punch to the back of his head, which caused Five’s head to jerk forward. 

Five stood frozen as the robber behind him stood tense, waiting for Five to strike back. Within a second, Five whirled on his heel and yanked the robber’s left arm outwards. He swiftly brought his knee up to the man’s elbow, causing it to sharply bend upwards. As the man instinctively reached out for Five with his right arm, Five grabbed it and sunk his teeth right into the man’s wrist. Five held on as the man struggled before he ripped his teeth out of his arm, tearing a chunk of flesh off. 

The robber on the ground was frozen in shock, unable to move as he watched his partner get torn apart. The man started to scream before he and Five disappeared in a flash. They reappeared within the blink of an eye next to a pillar as Five began to smash the man’s head into it. The poor man couldn’t fight back with his injured arms. He repeatedly bashed the man’s head into the marble pillar. It only took a few hits before the man stopped screaming. Five let the body go as it slid down the pillar. Five breathed heavily as he stood staring down at it.

The other robber, who was still in shock, was now quietly trying to escape. He began to scoot himself backwards, watching Five the whole time. Five’s head slowly cocked to the side as he heard the shuffling noise. He blinked away before he reappeared next to the table in the lobby. In one swift movement, he broke the open end of his glass of water on the table’s edge. He quickly grabbed a large shard of glass and lunged down at the man, stabbing the glass into his abdomen before raking it downwards. The man screamed in pain before Five slowly got up and grabbed the bottom of the broken glass. He loomed over the man before he swiftly drove it into the man’s throat. His screaming was replaced with gurgling before the man went limp. 

Five stepped over the man before he froze. He just stood there breathing heavily for a moment before he made a loud gasp as Five’s body suddenly jerked.

Diego reached out and paused the tape. “That’s when he snapped back.” He quietly announced. 

Luther was rubbing his hands over his face in disbelief. Diego kept his eyes glued to the carnage on the screen before he had to look away. Both of them were paler after watching the gruesome slaughter. 

“Shit….” They both sighed at the same time. 

Nothing could ever go right for the Hargreeves. 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. Testing the Boiling Hot Waters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it! I decided to upload this today as a gift. Sorry if it's no longer Christmas in your time zone :[

After a decent night of sleep, though he credited that to the sedatives that had almost completely left his system, Five trudged his way upstairs to the kitchen. 

_ He needed coffee like he needed to shed blood. _

Five huffed out a small laugh. He found his own morbid joke about himself ironic yet tragic. 

_ Maybe he was just losing his mind? He honestly was in a good mood at the moment. Nothing felt out of place, which was disturbing. It was day three, he had to be feeling something, right? _

Five opened the door at the top of the steps and made his way to the kitchen. He discovered Allison sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of toast and a steaming cup of black coffee across from her. Five rapidly blinked, confused at the scene in front of him. 

“Am I dreaming? What the hell is going on?” Five sleepily questioned.

Allison rolled her eyes as she took a drink of her coffee. 

“It’s called ‘Being nice to my older brother because he needs that right now.’” She teased.

Five slowly smirked at her little taunt.

_ Alright, well at least it seems like she’s trying to not get on his bad side.  _

"How'd you sleep?" She asked, yawning since she herself didn't sleep well.

Five sat down and grabbed his cup of coffee. 

"Well, when you kill two men you sleep pretty well." He joked as he brought his cup up to his mouth. Turns out, it was a decent cup of coffee.

"Not a bad cup of coffee." Five commented and raised his eyebrows at Allison.

"Well, no one really knew what kind of coffee you liked. Diego told me to 'Get the strongest shit you can find’ and so I did just that.” She smirked.

Five put his coffee down and made a slight pouty face. “You’re being nice to me, and not your normal nice. You’re being nicer. What’s with that?” he questioned, suspicious that she wanted something from him.

Allison rolled her eyes, not surprised that always suspicious Five thought something was up.

“What, I can’t be nice to you without you being suspicious of me? Five, so far this week has been rough for you, and it still will be in the next four days. I’m just putting in an effort to make you less stressed and reducing the chances I’ll trigger you. You had to deal with this alone, but now I want to be here for you.” She insisted.

Five looked back down to his coffee. “Thank you.” He quietly mumbled as he nodded his head.

“But,” she added on, “this also means I want to help you in some sort of way.” She proclaimed, smiling at the plan in her head. 

Five nearly choked on his coffee. Well, actually he did slightly choke. Five went into a small coughing fit. 

“What? Help me?” He choked out.

Allison raised her hand up in a ‘no duh’ motion. 

“Well yeah. You dealt with this before but that was in a different situation. Here in this ‘world’ you can’t just kill people to control it. Especially now, you’re like some angsty teenager. We need to break you in.” She clarified.

Five sat back in his chair, slightly dumbfounded at her idea. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right. Well, at least partially.

“That’s actually not as shitty an idea than I thought it would be. I don’t like it, but I think you’re onto something.” He agreed.

_ Yep. He definitely didn’t like it one bit, but there were benefits of this risky plan.  _

She hit the nail on the head about being in a different “world” where he couldn’t focus his aggression onto killing things. The only problem was that when he felt aggressive, it got hard to control himself. It was especially going to be harder now that it was about the middle of the cycle when things were starting to heat up more. 

After a moment of thinking to himself, he sat up and took another swig of his coffee.

“So, what’s your plan?” He questioned.

Allison smiled, glad to know that Five was willing to try it out. 

“Just a simple trip to the store. We need some supplies for the Academy.” She revealed.

Five tilted his head in a questioning manner. “In public? You want to take  _ me _ out in public? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

Allison rolled her eyes. “You literally just said it wasn’t a bad idea! How else did you think we were going to do this, mister? You need to be in social situations to learn to control yourself.” She scoffed.

Five flinched and clenched his jaw. “Fine, but no nicknames. That shit just pisses me off.” He growled.

“Okay, sure.” She agreed.

Five held up an index finger. “And, we use a code word in case something goes wrong. We’ll use ‘coffee.’” He smirked.

Allison scrunched up her face in confusion. 

“I thought your safe thing was a thumbs down?” She asked, confused that there were now two safety signals.

“No, that’s for when I’m about to lose it. ‘Coffee’ will be for when I’m feeling aggressive.” He took the last swallow of his coffee. 

“Okay then, it’s a plan.” She slapped the table and stood up. She reached over and took a piece of his untouched toast. “Go get dressed, you probably don’t want to go to the store in your Umbrella Academy pajamas.” She teased as she bit into the piece of toast and left the kitchen.

Five looked down as his light blue pajamas and sighed.

_ Well, this was going to be interesting. Interesting, yet bad. Let’s just hope this doesn’t end in disaster.  _

\-------------

Allison pulled up into the parking lot of a large supermarket and parked. She pulled out a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses, putting them on her head. She then put the hood up on the hoodie she was wearing. Five watched in fascination and confusion.

“What’s with the get up?” He asked, amused at his sister’s new fangled look.

“What? This?” She pointed at her head. “Well Five, when you’re famous you need to look as casual as possible so that people won’t recognize you.” She teased.

Five rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and I look like the Umbrella Academy kid who went missing over a decade ago. Oh wait, I am. I’m still in the uniform too.” He retorted. 

Allison pushed open her door. “Well, that’s your fault that you wore that.” She teased as she hopped out and shut the door.

Five looked down at himself.

_ Well shit, she got me there. _

He blinked himself out of the car and next to Allison, who had already begun walking towards the store.

“And when you do that,” she wildly gestured at his body, “that’s a great way for people to recognize you or at least notice you!” She exclaimed.

“Fine, no teleporting. Got it.” He sighed as they entered the store.

So far the shopping had been going fairly well. A crying baby, slow walkers, and people standing in the middle of the aisles were the only things to annoy Five so far. None of them, however, were enough to annoy him to the point of feeling aggressive. He was surprised at how well he was doing. 

They were now in one of the back corners of the store. It appeared that they were the only ones back there. Allison was deciding on what to buy while Five was absentmindedly wandering around near her.

“Excuse me? Ms. Hargreeves?” A man’s voice called out.

Both Five and Allison turned around to find who had called out to her. A young man was standing behind them holding a notebook and pen. 

_ He was young for Five’s standards, as Five assumed he was in his mid twenties. _

“I’m sorry to bother you, but may I have your autograph please?” He sheepishly asked.

Allison simply smiled at the man and held out her hand for the notebook and pen. “Sure thing.” She confirmed.

Five looked the guy up and down. 

_ Somewhat tall, looks slightly built. Nothing seems off putting except for the fact that he recognized Allison and possibly followed them to the back of the store. He’s obviously a fan, but some fans were downright freaks.  _

“Th-thank you!” He beamed as she handed his notebook and pen back to him. 

Allison offered a polite smile and turned back around to continue her shopping. Five followed her lead and turned back around. He could sense though that the young man was still behind them.

“Ms. Hargreeves? Or can I call you Allison? Allison, how’s your personal life right now? Where do you live now? Do you still talk to Patrick? Do you still talk to Claire or has Patrick cut you off from her?” The man behind them asked, not even taking a breath.

_ This guy definitely was some sort of creep.  _

He was already managing to annoy Five. Out of the corner of his eye Five could tell that Allison was now standing tensely.

_ This asshole is bugging them on his little outing with his sister.  _

_ He was hurting her. _

Five whirled around on his heel and faced the man.

“Listen here, asshole. You got your autograph, alright? Why are you still here? Just to ask her questions that are none of your goddamn business? Here, let me ask you some: In what grade did you drop out of school? How small is your brain? At what age were you dropped on your head? When did you learn that you couldn’t pick up on social cues? Do you know what it sounds like to snap someone’s neck?” Five seethed, accidentally blurting out the last part.

“Five, leave him be.” Allison called out to him, stopping him from raging on.

Five stopped in a huff as he glared at the man. He shoved his hands in his pockets to hide the claws he had formed with them, ready to reach out and attack. The man on the other hand instead of being afraid, now looked as equally as pissed as Five. The man turned around and marched away from them.

Allison reached out and gently put her hand on Five’s shoulder. 

“Hey, you alright? Coffee?” She asked, concerned that he was taking a turn for the worst. 

Five shook his head. “Just annoyed that that asshole was bothering you.” He huffed.

“Thank you Five, but I could have handled that myself. You need to focus on you right now. Do we need to leave or should we continue shopping?” She questioned, not wanting to force Five to stay in the store.

He took in a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m fine. Let’s finish up.” He confirmed.

\-------------

They had finished up their shopping without any other incident or annoyance. They were on their way to the car in the mostly empty parking lot when suddenly a man jumped out from behind a car. 

It was the same guy from before.

He grabbed Allison from behind and wrapped his arms around her neck. Out of instinct, Five teleported from the sudden movement. He landed behind Allison as she stomped on the man’s foot and threw him over her shoulder. He slammed onto his back and gasped as the wind was knocked out of him.

_ Finish him. _

_ Kill him. _

_ End him so that he can’t hurt her again. _

Five snarled at the man before quickly throwing himself to the ground. He grabbed his head, taking his eyes away from the man. Allison turned around, huffing from the effort it took to slam the guy into the ground.

“Five, are you okay?” She asked, turning her concern onto her brother. 

The man took that as an opportunity to escape as he quickly scrambled to his feet and ran away. 

Like a predator, primal instincts inside of Five screamed at him to chase after the fleeing prey. He gripped his head tighter, trying to focus on calming himself down. 

“Five? Coffee?” Allison asked again as she kneeled down next to Five.

_ She was getting too close.  _

“Get the hell away from me.” He snarled at her, beginning to slightly pant.

Allison was taken aback and frightened at the sudden change in his demeanor. She was just going to assume he had meant to say “coffee.”

She slowly leaned closer to him. “I heard a rumor that you fell asleep.” She whispered in his ear.

Five felt himself suddenly get sleepy. The good thing though was that it distracted him from his thoughts as it began to calm him down.

“Coffee.” He muttered as he shut his eyes and tipped over sideways.

\-------------

“Five?” A distant voice called.

“Five?” It repeated.

Five snapped his eyes open and looked around. He was back in the car with Allison. 

“Shit.” He groaned. He instantly remembered what had happened before he fell asleep. 

“Hey, how are you feeling now?” Allison calmly asked.

“Sleepy.” Five sleepily teased. “But thanks for that though, I needed it.”

He was being genuine about that. He was thankful for being knocked out before his mind spiraled out of control.

“Well it looked like you weren’t doing too hot so I decided to help you cool down.” Allison replied, her voice cracking at the end.

It was Five’s turn to be concerned now. 

“Did he hurt you? I’m sorry I wasn’t quick enough to stop him or get him off of you.” He apologized. 

“Just a little squeeze around the neck, not a big deal. Five, you don’t always need to protect us. We can handle ourselves too.” Allison chided, slightly coughing. 

Five sighed. “I wasn’t able to be there for you guys for decades. Now that I have the opportunity though I’ll be right there beside you. I know you guys can handle yourselves.” He informed her. 

He wasn’t going to add on though that he was the oldest and that the oldest sibling protected the rest. Besides, he knew there were things out there that his siblings actually couldn’t handle.

The car stayed silent for a moment. 

“Fine.” Allison agreed, understanding from Five’s point of view what he had been through. 

Five’s mind began to drift back to right before he fell asleep. He had been so close to putting his thumb down as he teetered on the edge of insanity. He remembered telling Allison to stay away. In all honesty he did feel slightly bad about that, but in the end he just didn’t want her to get hurt.

_ Especially by him. _

“Allison if anything happens, I’m sorry.” He blurted out after a beat of silence.

“What? What are you talking about?” Allison asked, confused by what he said.

“If I....do anything to any of you, I’m sorry.” He choked as his voice cracked.

“I know, Five.” She assured him.

Allison gingerly reached out and touched Five’s hand, pausing to give him time to pull his hand away if he wanted to. When he didn’t pull away, Allison wrapped her hand around Five’s. When he was a kid he never wanted to be comforted, but here in this moment Allison was glad he was allowing himself to be comforted. 

\-------------

After they returned home from the store, Allison managed to convince Five to stay out of the basement for the rest of the day. As much as Five didn’t like that idea, Allison reminded him that socializing also included his family. He was going to be mostly around them when it came to his cycle time.

Allison made a deal that she would be his second spotter since she could rumor him if things got out of hand. Five reluctantly agreed and decided to read a book in the living room. 

He was sitting on the couch reading a book about time travel their father had when a small crumpled up paper ball landed on the book. He looked up to find Diego staring down at him.

Five squinted up at him before turning his attention to the paper ball. He opened it and read the note on it.

_ Hey, look up.  _

“Well no shit Sherlock.” Five replied out loud as he looked back up to Diego.

Diego gripped the railing as he looked around in defeat.

“Well I thought you were going to read it first.” He muttered.

Five rolled his eyes. “What do you want?”

“You and me, we’re going out tonight. We leave at midnight.” Diego grinned.

“You want _ me _ , the person who almost killed you, to go out with you alone tonight?” Five questioned.

“Well when you put it that way it sounds shady as shit. Trust me though, it’ll be fun. I want to make it up to you from earlier.” He sheepishly added at the end.

Five wasn’t too sure about whatever Diego had in store, but he remembered what Allison said about socializing.

_ He needed it or else he wouldn’t be able to go anywhere or be near his siblings when he was like this.  _

“Fine. I have the right though to refuse if anything gets too crazy.” Five answered. 

“Yeah I’m cool with that.” Diego smiled, trying to play off his excitement.

He really was going to try to help Five. He needed to make up for being an asshole earlier. If he could just earn Five’s trust then he knew that all would be well. 

Five on the other hand was beginning to regret agreeing on going out with Diego. Diego was probably the most infuriating sibling due to his stubbornness. He was also an idiot, so that didn’t help. 

_ Olga Foroga my ass. _

Nonetheless, Five needed this to make himself safe to be around. If he hurt any of his siblings again he would quite honestly lose it. It was dawning on the fourth day of the cycle when his aggression would be kicking up even more. This would be Five’s greatest test of self control yet.

It was time that this old dog learned some new tricks. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Fivey Five is being bold and trying new things out! Nothing ever goes right though, does it?


End file.
